Chinese Studies and History BA
2025-26 entryThis is a balanced course that develops your Chinese language skills and historical knowledge. History modules are designed to complement your Chinese studies. They cover various political, social and cultural themes. You'll also spend part of your degree studying in a Chinese-speaking society.
Key details
- A Levels ABB
Other entry requirements - UCAS code TV11
- 4 years / Full-time
- September start
- Find out the course fee
- Dual honours
- Foreign language study
- Study abroad
Explore this course:
Course description
Why study this course?
Become a specialist in your chosen areas of history and develop your understanding of Chinese culture.
Apply your rapidly developing language skills in the real world, refine your critical understanding – and experience a life-changing trip.
In small-group seminars, explore the details of your favourite area of history with a true expert on the topic, and become a specialist in your chosen area.
Core to our teaching ethos, every history module includes a small group seminar.
Through the study of history, gain the critical foundations for understanding how Chinese culture has changed and developed over time - while gaining advanced language skills.
Choose from a variety of history modules that complement your Chinese studies, covering political, social and cultural themes, and engage with real research from the beginning of your course. Develop the skills of historical research, independent judgement, critiquing accepted opinions and constructing your own effective arguments.
You’ll undertake intensive language teaching with the opportunity to put into practise your Chinese during a year at one of our partner universities in mainland China or Taiwan. Returning to Sheffield for your final year you’ll refine your language skills, deepen your understanding through research-led modules and complete a dissertation project of your choice supervised by world-leading researchers.
Through this degree, you’ll not only explore China’s past, but also anticipate how past developments will drive events in the future.
Modules
UCAS code: TV11
Years: 2024, 2025
For Chinese, In your first year you will begin your language learning by focusing on reading, writing, listening and speaking, working with qualified native-speaker language teachers, using specially designed course material.
For history, the first year programme is designed to help you to make the transition from studying History at school or college to studying it at degree level. Building your confidence and broadening your knowledge.
It introduces you to core academic skills and provides a solid grounding in historical study and research, giving you the foundations you'll need to deepen your understanding of historical events and processes throughout your degree and setting you off on the path to becoming an independent historian.
Our first year history option modules introduce you to our main areas of teaching and research and give you insight into what you can study in the coming years, so that you can better shape your degree to your individual interests.
You will take one core module and have 40 credits available to use on option modules from various Arts and Humanities subjects such as English, Music, Philosophy, and Sociological Studies amongst others. A final guided module list is made available to new students when you select your modules as part of registration.
Core history module:
- History Workshop
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What does it take to be a historian? In this module, you will study the process of historical research, learning discipline-specific methods and essential study and writing skills through close engagement with a historical text (usually a work of narrative non-fiction) linked to your tutor's research interests. You will develop skills in critical reading, historiography, essay writing, bibliographic techniques, and reflection.
20 credits
The assessment for this module is aimed at giving you a strong foundation in the skills you will need throughout your degree and beyond: critical reading and writing, bibliographic techniques, and the ability to reflect on and articulate your skills as a historian.
History option modules:
- Empire: From the Ancient World to the Middle Ages
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Covering the period from the 4th century BC to the 15th century AD, this module invites students to explore the ancient and medieval worlds through the lens of 'empire'. It provides an introduction to ancient and medieval types of empire, their contacts with and legacies to each other, and the connectedness between East and West in this period. Using a wealth of primary evidence and drawing on corresponding historiographical debates, students explore what it meant to live in ancient and medieval empires, what kind of social, cultural and religious encounters they engendered, and whether there was any space for resistance.
20 credits - The Long View: an introduction to archaeology
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This module traces the development of modern humans through to the modern era. It introduces the wide range of materials and methods that archaeologists use to study the past. The practical laboratory-based classes and field classes provide experience in the basic identification, investigation and interpretation of archaeological evidence. They are supported by lectures that introduce archaeological methods, theories and worldwide case studies. From field to laboratory using examples from throughout the world, you will learn about how archaeology shapes knowledge about the deep and recent human past.
20 credits
Through this module students will be introduced to debates on the formation and development of archaeological thought through a world-wide perspective from the Palaeolithic to the present. They will be presented with techniques and ideas used by archaeologists to explore the human record and understand the past. It offers an opportunity to explore and discover the archaeological record through practical engagement, using field and laboratory methods, while also highlighting the importance of selecting analytical techniques appropriate to the question posed and the data available. The module will enable students to develop core skills in decoding and critically understanding literature, observation, recording, analysis and interpreting archaeological evidence. - Paths from Antiquity to Modernity
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The aim of this module is to introduce you to the broad structures of Western history from the end of the Roman Empire to the present day. It provides students intending to take History Single or Dual Honours degree modules with a common framework for the more detailed modules that you will be studying at Levels Two and Three. At the same time, it provides non-historians with a fundamental appraisal of the shape of the past, to which courses in other departments will readily relate. Our aim is to equip you with an understanding of the periodisation of western history and of the major transitions in the process of modernisation. In the process, you will become more critically aware of the essential conceptual tools that modern historians readily use to analyse the past. The module aims to provide the essential training in the skills and methods needed for University level historical study.
20 credits - The 'Disenchantment' of Early Modern Europe, c. 1570-1770
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This module explores the fundamental shifts in mental attitudes and public behaviour that occurred in Europe between the age of the Reformation and the age of the Enlightenment. The central focus of the course will be the examination of the supernatural - religious beliefs, but also witchcraft and magic. You will explore the changing ways in which beliefs impinged on people's lives at various social levels. You will also have an opportunity to study the impact on people's world views of such changes as rising literacy, urbanisation, state formation and new discoveries about the natural world. All these will be investigated in the institutional contexts of state and church and the ways in which they sought to channel and mould beliefs and behaviour. This module enables you to understand how the early modern period is distinctive from and links medieval and later modern historical studies.
20 credits - The Making of the Twentieth Century
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This module considers the twentieth century as a time that transformed the social and political order in the world, calling into question the role of the European powers in global contexts, and dramatically reorienting the relationship between states and societies. You will engage with case studies representing key themes in twentieth-century global history: imperialism and the processes of decolonisation; the challenges of building the postcolonial nation; revolutions and the emergence of new states; war, genocide and conflict; and the institutions of international order.
20 credits
In addressing these themes, The Making of the Twentieth Century has a particular aim of counteracting prevailing tendencies towards Eurocentrism. You will gain a considerable body of knowledge on the histories of Asia, Africa and Latin America especially. At the same time, emphasis is placed on the empirical and theoretical grounds upon which competing interpretations rest in order to encourage you to develop critical awareness of the character of historical analysis. More generally, this module aims to develop analytical, conceptual and literary skills through class discussion and written assignments. Communication skills will also be emphasised in weekly seminars that will allow specific issues to be discussed in more depth, often with reference to primary source material. Above all, the module seeks to stimulate an interest in history and an appreciation of cultural diversity. - The Transformation of the United Kingdom, 1800 to the Present
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This module explores the central political, social, economic, cultural and diplomatic developments that have transformed Britain since 1800. Unlike most of its European neighbours, Britain did not experience dramatic moments of revolution, constitution-building, invasion or military defeat; indeed the belief that the nation was set on a course of gradual evolutionary progress was central to many versions of British identity. This course examines how, when and why change occurred in Britain. Key themes include the transition to mass democracy; the impact of industrialisation; shifts in social relationships based on class, gender and ethnicity; and the rise and fall of Britain as an imperial power.
20 credits
Core Chinese language modules
- Chinese Language 1A
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This module is focusing on receptive activities and written productive activities in Chinese language. It aims to enable students to acquire basic competence in grammar, reading, writing and translation both from and into Chinese skills. Every week carefully designed grammar structures and vocabulary will be introduced so that students will be able to do something practical in writing. Chinese characters and sentences are introduced from the earliest stages.
20 credits - Chinese Language 1B
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This module is focusing on interactive activities in Chinese. It aims to enable students to acquire basic competence in speaking and listening skills. Every week carefully designed grammar structures and vocabulary will be introduced so that students will be able to communicate in Chinese through a variety of activities.
10 credits - Chinese Language 2A
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This module is focusing on receptive activities and written productive activities in Chinese language. It aims to enable students to acquire basic competence in grammar, reading, writing and translation both from and into Chinese skills. Every week carefully designed grammar structures and vocabulary will be introduced so that students will be able to do something practical in writing Chinese characters and sentences are introduced from the earliest stages.
20 credits - Chinese Language 2B
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This module is focusing on interactive activities in Chinese. It aims to enable students to acquire basic competence in speaking and listening skills. Every week carefully designed grammar structures and vocabulary will be introduced so that students will be able to communicate in Chinese through a variety of activities.
10 credits
In your Chinese language classes you will build on what you have learnt in your first year and focus on language which will help you on your year abroad.
For History, the second year programme builds on what you’ve learnt so far and introduces you to new and exciting topics. It’s designed to help you hone your research skills and start to look outwards beyond your degree.
You'll choose from two core modules designed to enhance your independent research skills with a focus on ‘theory and practice’, reflecting on the intellectual development of our discipline and its place in the world today. You’ll learn to challenge assumptions and appreciate the bigger picture. If you choose to take the Uses of History, you'll also diversify your employability skills through group work and creating a pitch for a historical artefact such as a TV documentary, a podcast, or a journal article.
These modules will lay the groundwork for the in-depth research involved in our final year special subject and dissertation modules.
Our wide range of option modules mean you can explore key periods, themes and events in history and develop your knowledge and interests ahead of choosing a specialist topic in your final year.
You'll normally take one core module and two option modules.
Major/Minor option
You can choose to take 60 credits in each subject or you can choose to specialise by dividing your degree so that one third (40 credits) is the minor subject and two thirds (80 credits) are the major subject. This option is available through the level 2 module choice processes, you do not need to apply in advance.
History core module:
- Historians and History
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This course will introduce students to the most influential 'schools' of historical practice in operation in the second half of the twentieth century and which remain influential today. These include Marxism, the Annales school, quantitative history, history from below, feminist and gender history, and postmodernism, as well as English empiricism. Lectures will provide an overview of each approach, and discuss the historical context in which it emerged. In seminars, students will be taught to assess critically the opportunities and limitations of each approach.
20 credits - The Uses of History
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This module explores the theory and practice of public history by providing students with the opportunity to communicate their scholarly work to an audience beyond the boundaries of our discipline. Students will articulate an aspect of their own historical interests to a non-academic audience and evaluate the use of history outside academic settings. The course will engage in debate about important questions facing historians in the present, and consider ideas about the role and purposes of History as an academic subject.
20 credits
History option module examples:
Option modules are 20 credits each. Dual honours students will normally take between one and three modules from across our options and document options, depending on if you choose to major or minor in history.
- A Protestant Nation? Religion, Politics and Culture in England 1560-1640
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On the accession of Elizabeth I, England became an officially Protestant country but the Church, State and laypeople did not necessarily agree about the nature of changes needed to accommodate the new religion. On the level of national government policy, we shall explore what governments expected from their subjects and how they attempted to secure religious conformity during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I. How far did anti-Catholicism define English identity in this period? Did authorities at the national and local levels disagree about how severely religious minorities should be treated?
20 credits - Contemporary Russia and the World
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This module provides an overview of the historical changes that have affected Russian society since the introduction of the Gorbachev reform programme in 1985. This includes the dramatic economic, political, demographic, institutional and ideological changes that have occurred in the period. Attention will also be paid to the international context in which these changes have taken place, leading to an analysis of the interaction between domestic and international factors that have shaped and continue to shape Russian society today.
20 credits - Culture in Early Modern Europe
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Culture is the key to understanding how societies thought and behaved in the past. Early modern Europe - a period of immense cultural change and conflict - is no different. This wide ranging module introduces students to ideas about culture and examines how cultural history has revolutionised what we know about the lives of men, women and children in Europe between 1500 and 1800. Building on a rich historiography and through a series of intriguing case studies, the module draws on wide range of sources - such as diaries, letters, and legal records, to printed works, art and archaeology - to enter into the many cultures of early modern Europe. The module explores issues like material culture, youth culture, cultures of protest, intellectual culture, and religious culture. It asks whether we can talk about different cultures of men and women and how cultures were affected by social and economic inequalities. It thinks about forces of cultural integration and pressures of cultural conflict. And it explores ideas of cultural change, and how these changes helped create the modern world.
20 credits - Decolonisation: The End of Empire & the Future of the World
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The world was transformed in the twentieth century. A world of empires and colonies became a world of independent states. In this module we analyse this global transformation. Why did it happen - and how? How much really changed? For people around the globe - from imperial rulers in Europe to anti-colonial nationalists in the 'third world' - the crumbling of European empires was an opportunity to shape the future of their own communities and of the world. Sometimes negotiated, often violent, these hard-fought struggles over the future created the world we live in today.
20 credits - Ethics: Theoretical and Practical
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There are some things we morally ought to do, ways we ought to live. Those of us who are not moral sceptics will agree so far. Indeed, we may even agree extensively about what we ought to do or how we ought to live. But why? Ethicists don't just ask what we ought to do. They also try to work out, as systematically as possible, what explains the demands, obligations and requirements that stem from morality. That is what this module will explore. Is morality all about promoting the well-being of humans and other creatures? Does it stem from the requirements of rationality? Is it aimed at achieving the distinctive kinds of excellence that creatures like us can attain?
20 credits - Feminism
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Feminists have famously claimed that the personal is political. This module takes up various topics with that methodological idea in mind: the family, cultural critique, language. We examine feminist methodologies - how these topics might be addressed by a feminism that is inclusive of all women - and also turn attention to social structures within which personal choices are made - capitalism, and climate crisis .
20 credits - Gender and the Georgians: Sex and Society in Britain 1714-1837
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Eighteenth-century Britain witnessed great change: historians have argued for a 'revolution' in industry, the 'birth of a consumer society' and the emergence of a 'public sphere' of political debate; global trade expanded, towns grew, and new Enlightenment ideas flourished. In this context, gender identities and roles were redefined, understandings of the body debated, and notions of masculinity and femininity contested. This module explores these ideas about gender, and how they informed people's experiences, from polite fashions to the criminal underworld, bluestocking sobriety to drunkenness in gentlemen's clubs, and from 'subcultures' of homosexuality to the first 'feminists'
20 credits - Gender, Race and Class in Nazi Germany 1933-1945
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This module analyses German society from 1933 to 1945 from the perspective of gender, race and class. We will examine the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion under the Nazi dictatorship through the lens of the agency of ‘Aryan’ women and men, the persecution of ‘racially’ defined minorities and by probing into the connections between social class and both consent and popular dissent. While racial categories were pivotal for Nazi policy, their application and their outcomes intersected with issues of gender and class, whether in the forced sterilization of (mostly) women, or in labour market policies that limited gainful employment of women. Through the focus on gender, race and class as dimensions of policy, collective agency and experiences in Germany from 1933 to 1945, the module will offer an introduction into key aspects of the Nazi dictatorship and its dynamics.
20 credits - Good Books: Intertextual Approaches to Literature and the Bible
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Literature, film and television constantly return to the Bible as a source of narrative, character and image. Biblical texts are translated, rewritten, transposed and radically challenged by literature from the medieval period to the present day and so intertextual readings of the Bible and literature provide insight into the ways authors engage with politics, philosophy, and tradition. In this module you will explore a range of intertextual relationships, from the ancient texts describing Lilith to Zora Neale Hurston's literature of the Harlem Renaissance through to recent cinematic approaches to the Bible, including a range of genres and approaches. You will learn to critically analyse film, TV and visual media as well as literary forms, to explore the ways in which creative writers interpret and re-imagine biblical narratives and tropes.
20 credits - Holy Russia, Soviet Empire: Nation, Religion, and Identity in the 20th Century
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This module explores the twentieth-century history of Russia, the Soviet Union, and its successor states. Rather than approaching this turbulent period in history by focusing on the rise and fall of different political leaders (as is often the case in survey courses), we instead approach this subject through the prism of nation, religion and identity. The course probes the following questions: What did the 'Russian revolution mean for the multi-national empire created by the Romanovs? How far did the communist party manage to create a 'Soviet' identity, and on what was this based? Did the Bolsheviks attempt to create an atheist society succeed? And what happened to 'Soviet' identity when communist leaders began to lose their grip on power in the final decades of the twentieth century?
20 credits - Life Worth Living
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What does it mean for a life to go well? How does one live life well? What is a flourishing life? These questions have shaped intellectual endeavour for millennia. Life Worth Living explores approaches to these questions through engagement with diverse traditions/thinkers including classical Greek philosophy, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Existentialism, Marx, and Nietzsche. The module includes historical analysis of these traditions, visits from individuals whose lives are shaped by them, fieldwork to discuss the ideas beyond the classroom, and assessments to help students develop their own vision of a life worth living.
20 credits - Philosophy of Mind
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This module provides a survey of philosophical theories of the mind, looking at such questions as: How is consciousness possible? Why is it that vibrations in the air around us produce conscious experiences of particular auditory experiences in our minds? Why is it that electromagnetic waves hitting our retinas produce particular visual experiences in our minds? What makes our thoughts represent things in the world? What is it about your thought that cats have whiskers that makes it about cats and whiskers? What is it about your thought that there are stars in the universe too far away for any human to have perceived them that makes it about such stars? What is the relation between thoughts and conscious experiences and brain states? We'll look at a variety of answers to these and related questions and examine some of the most important and influential theories that contemporary philosophers have to offer.
20 credits - Postcolonial France and Britain: Empire and its legacies since 1945
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In 1942, Winston Churchill declared, 'I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire'. However, between 1945-1960 a quarter of the world's inhabitants revolted against colonialism and colonial rule. So how did we get from Churchill's certainty that the Empire will endure to the emergence of 65 new sovereign states - and what were the consequences in Europe of that massive shift?
20 credits
This module looks at postwar Western Europe through an imperial lens, applying new perspectives from the field of postcolonial studies which argue that empire and metropole should not be examined separately. The module covers three main themes: the question of what empire and its loss meant to the colonisers; migration from former colonies to Europe and its consequences; and the memory, representation and historiography of empire. Focusing on Britain and France the module uses a wide range of sources and approaches to explore cultural, social and political aspects of post-colonial Europe.
You will learn what empire meant to Europeans in the twentieth century, and in what ways colonialism and its legacies have shaped the history of Europe since the end of formal imperial rule between 1945 and 1980. Over the course of the semester we'll examine a variety of topics, beginning with an introduction to postcolonialism as a theory and a means of examining and understanding the world. We'll then start exploring how the colonial empires were perceived at the end of the Second World War. We'll look at the late-colonial state and new forms of colonial rule, including changing ideas about colonial governance, race and equality. Then we'll move to the failure of the late-colonial project: was the decision to withdraw from empire an orderly retreat? In particular, we'll focus on reactions to and debates about decolonisation in Algeria and Kenya in metropolitan societies. We'll examine the experiences of the Windrush generation, and questions of race relations, policing, and the emergence of racial discourses in politics and society.The focus here will be on the 1958-70s for the British case (Enoch Powell) and the 1960s in France with the emergence of the Front Nationale and the emergence of anti-racism campaigns and movements since 1968. We will finish our semester examining the 'second generation' with questions on ethnicity, difference and belonging through the concepts of 'post-colonial fracturing'. Through sport, culture and music we'll look at national identity - was the 1998 French world cup team a representation of multicultural France? We'll end the semester on the question of colonial nostalgia, former settler's repatriation to Europe, and the problems of commemoration in the French case. - Religion in an Age of Terror: Ancient Texts and the Making of Modern Israel.
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This module will look at the origins, growth and development of conflict and violence in the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), in order to provide a historical perspective on the roots of contemporary religious violence. The focus of the module will be a case-study on the conflict in Israel/Palestine (especially between 1947-67). Primary source analysis will be of the Bible/Quran (and related material), and the documents relating to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Related topics will include: theories of religious violence; religious terrorism; politics and religion; and the roots of religious 'fundamentalism.'
20 credits - Shell-Shock to Prozac: Mental Health in Britain
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This course charts the history of psychiatry and mental health in Britain. We start at the First World War, with the large-scale management of psychiatric casualties (shell-shock). We will look at the uptake of psychoanalysis in interwar Britain, contrasted with 'extreme' asylum treatments such as lobotomy and insulin coma therapy. We shall then gauge the impact of the National Health Service from 1948, the closure of the asylums, and the impact of new drug therapies (including the iconic Prozac). Finally we shall analyse the rise of patient activism, and the emergence of new 'epidemic' illnesses such as depression and self-harm.
20 credits - The Export of England: Seventeenth Century Trade and Empire
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This module considers the commercial and territorial expansion of seventeenth-century England. It examines how England's commerce was transformed from the largely bilateral cloth trade with Europe conducted by mercantile corporations, to a multilateral commerce conducted under several conditions (the 'navigation system, 'free trade', joint-stock companies). These changes coincided with the foundation of North American and West Indian colonies, building on earlier experiences in Ireland, and the course will consider their developing relations with the metropolis. Throughout, the focus will be on whether these changes were a consequence of deliberate 'mercantilist' state policies, or of the initiative of thousands of individuals.
20 credits - The Heretic, the Witch and the Inquisitor: The Medieval Inquisition from the Cathars to Joan of Arc
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The Inquisition - an extraordinary court instituted by bishops from the 13th century to judge heretics and encourage their return to the Roman Church - marks an important development in medieval history and has played an essential role in modern perceptions of the Middle Ages. By focusing on some of the best known sources of the Inquisition, which have been important in recent historiography as well as contemporary fiction (The Name of the Rose), this module allows you to reflect on how a better understanding of the Middle Ages and a critical questioning of modern prejudices can benefit from each other.
20 credits
The module focuses on two main source collections (which are available online in English translation): the inquisition record of Jacques Fournier, bishop of Pamiers in South France in the early 14th century, who became Pope Benedict XII, and the two trials of Joan of Arc, i.e., the accusation trial of 1431, at the end of which she was burned at the stake, and the rehabilitation trial of the 1450s that overturned the verdict of the first trial. It examines other forms and continuations of inquisition, such as the Spanish Inquisition (starting in 1478), the Roman Inquisition (which famously condemned Galileo in 1633), and the beginning of the witch-craze of the early modern period in late medieval Europe. - The History of American Foreign Relations
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George Washington famously warned against 'the insidious wiles of foreign influence' in his farewell address in 1796. But history has challenged any idea of the United States as a self-contained, bounded nation. Rather, the U.S. has played an active role in world affairs and has been profoundly shaped by events and people outside its borders. This course surveys the history of the U.S. in global context, beginning with America's first forays into overseas expansion in the late nineteenth century. We will cover both the major foreign policy moments and trends in U.S. history ;wars, government initiatives and interventions abroad, interstate diplomacy 'as well as the less formal encounters, migrations, and transnational exchanges that constitute American foreign relations. Primary and secondary source readings, lectures, and discussions will pay particular attention to the intersections between changes at home and developments abroad.
20 credits - The Making of Modern India, 1780-1965
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Modern South Asian history has been an exceptionally fertile field of scholarly exploration, with many new insights and theoretical developments emerging from this field. This module will study the recent historiographical trends while looking closely at several historical developments during the period of British rule and the immediate post-colonial period. The module will be divided into four parts: the early colonial period, the late colonial period, the period of anti-colonial resistance or the national movement, and the post-colonial/Nehruvian era. The themes to be studied include: land/agrarian settlements, British expansionist policies, the revolt of 1857, the formation of caste identities, British famine policies, socio-religious reforms, Gandhian mass-mobilization, Islamic assertions, the national movement, Nehruvian socialism, partition of the subcontinent, and post-colonial legacies.
20 credits - The Slavonic Languages: Structure, History and Variation
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This module investigates the grammars and histories of two Slavonic languages, Russian and Czech, introducing students to the discipline of linguistics through the languages they study. Selected topics in the grammar of Slavonic languages highlight how structures of Russian and Czech have developed differently, how they are changing in the current world, and where they came from. Among the topics are case meaning and case forms; aspect; verb conjugation; animacy; and word order. Students learn how to design and implement their own linguistic research projects using sing corpora and experimental methods.
20 credits - Trumpism: An American Biography
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Donald Trump's election, commentators claim, was unprecedented as well as unexpected: a break with more than two centuries of custom. Yet closer scrutiny of American history suggests Trump is no aberration. The module will interrogate the U.S. past to better understand the present, looking at the likes of populism as a political language, whiteness as a psychological wage, masculinity as a path to high office, protectionism as an economic policy, and deindustrialization as a political spur. By asking historical questions about the roots of Trump's rise, we will situate the American present in a complex and often painful past.
20 credits
History document option module examples:
Document option modules are 20 credits each. Dual honours students have the option to take one document option module.
History document modules have a narrower focus than our standard option modules and usually cover a specific event, a movement, or a moment in time. They help you develop your skills in the use and analysis of primary sources which will be invaluable as you progress through your degree. Dual honours students have the option to take one document option module.
- Byzantine Intersectionality: Gender, Race and Power in the Medieval Mediterranean, c.500-1300
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How did race and gender appear before modernity? How similar were they to how race and gender appear to us today? And can the tools of intersectionality, an approach developed by the critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw that thinks of different kinds of identities as deeply intertwined in structuring our lives, help us understand the medieval world? These questions sit at the heart of this module, which will guide you through the Byzantine world, the survivor of the Roman empire in the East, stretching from the Balkans to Syria, but with a particular focus on the manifold ways in which this world and its power hierarchies were structured by complex ideas about gender and race. From castrated men, or eunichs, sleeping at the foot of the emperor's bed, to saints assigned female at birth who decided to spend their lives as men in male monasteries, this course will ask us to reconsider the assumptions we make about gender and race today, by tracing both how far they have come from the medieval period, and how far they have deviated from it. It will both start and conclude with some bigger historiographical questions: does the existence of race and gender in the past, the realities of racial and sexual hierarchy, offer us an origins story or an opportunity for liberation today?
20 credits - Critical Issues in Teaching
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This module introduces you to key issues and roles involved in being a teacher. It is suitable for those who definitely want to teach and those who have not yet considered teaching as a career. The focus of the module is teaching in England. It covers teaching across the age range, with sessions devoted to early years, primary, secondary and further and higher education. The module also deals with issues such as assessing students' learning, managing challenging behaviour, working with parents and other professionals. By the end of the module you should have a clear idea of what's involved in 'being a teacher'.
20 credits - From Democratic Marxism to Dictatorship: the 1973 Coup in Chile
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This document option explores the coup of 11 September 1973 as a turning point in Chilean, Latin American and global history. It will use primary sources to explore events on both sides of this critical date, casting light on life in Chile under both democracy and dictatorship. This module will also situate the Chilean coup in international and global history, asking why events in a small Latin American country held such global importance. We'll use government documents to explore why the United States found it necessary to intervene against the Allende government and assist the reactionary forces who supported the military coup and transcripts of interviews to grasp how everyday life changed for Chileans in 1973. We'll also explore the significance of events in Chile for the wider global Cold War, using music, art and documents left by activists to ask why everyday people in countries across the world - including the United Kingdom - mobilised in solidarity with the Chilean people and in the name of human rights, and we'll also assess the impact this activism had.
20 credits - Digital Storytelling
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The use of digital media to enhance the effectiveness of a narrative is common in the fields of business, entertainment, cultural heritage, education and journalism. The module provides an introduction to the area of digital storytelling including key concepts and technologies involved in creating/using digital content and how to use digital media to tell a story. Students will be taught practical skills such as how to create and use digital media such as images, videos, and sounds, and how to design and create complex multimedia applications using Adobe Animate CC (an industry recognised platform, using HTML and CSS).
20 credits - Looking East: British Perceptions of the Soviet Union from the Holodomor to the Early Cold War
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In this module you will learn about how Britons perceived the Soviet Union during the Stalin era. You will examine the reasons why some Britons responded in adulatory fashion to the Soviet experiment, and why others saw a malignant force out to undermine Britain's institutions and way of life. You will understand how the Soviet Union was represented across the media and in different cultural forms, and discover what this reveals about how Britons thought about themselves between the 1930s and 1950s; their hopes, fears, and introspection about their place in the world.The module covers key topics that act as landmarks in the chronology of British attitudes to the Soviet experiment, including the Holodomor (Ukrainian Terror-Famine), Stalin's purges, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the wartime alliance, and the start of the Cold War. The module also considers other less well-known episodes that influenced British perceptions: the Metropolitan-Vickers affair in 1933; the Russophobia of press outlets such as the Saturday Review (1933-1936); and Moscow Dynamo's football tour in November 1945. These incidents will also be set against wider themes that influenced the reactions of Britons, notably the role of 'fellow travellers' and itinerant sceptics, international political dynamics (such as affinity for fascist alternatives), and cultural representations in literature and other media forms.
20 credits - Modern Japanese History
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This module will explore key themes in the modern history of Japan from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, while developing core skills in reading primary sources and historical analysis. Broad themes include identity and nation-building, social and economic change, war and its practical and cultural legacies. Key sub-disciplinary approaches will be based in social and cultural history, with some excursions into other historiographical approaches. It will be delivered through weekly lectures, and seminars structured around developing primary source analysis skills and relating these to appropriate secondary literature.
20 credits - Murder in the cathedral: the Becket Affair
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On 29 December 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally murdered in his cathedral by four knights of his King and one-time friend, Henry II. In the space of ten years, a close friendship had been ruined, and Thomas' stubbornness, flight to France, and untimely death created additional tensions for the English king. This document option investigates events surrounding Thomas' death and the emergence of his cult. It asks how a minor squabble became a continent-wide cause célèbre, forcing Henry into an act of ritual humiliation to clear his name while ensuring that Thomas' memory lived on.
20 credits - Philosophy of the Arts
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This module introduces students to a broad range of issues in the philosophy of art. The first half asks 'What is art?'. It examines three approaches: expression theories, institutional accounts, and the cluster account. This is followed by two critiques focusing on the lack of women in the canon and problems surrounding 'primitive' art. The evolutionary approach to art is discussed , and two borderline cases: craft and pornography. The second half examines four issues: cultural appropriation of art, pictorial representation, aesthetic experience and the everyday, and the nature of artistic creativity.
20 credits - The Myth of Venice
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Historians usually debunk fabrications, but myths can themselves be the focus of historical study. This module explores the Myth of Venice, its production, diffusion, and reception. Venice was celebrated as the ideal republican government, but it was also the city of state terror and seductive `oriental¿ luxury. Students will examine a wide variety of sources and develop the skills required for their interpretation: descriptions of the city by Venetians and foreigners; political tracts; maps, paintings and sculpture; theatre and literature. The course concludes by considering how these myths have endured and influenced the writing of Venetian history.
20 credits - The Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858-85
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Britain's 'Irish problem' has long roots. This document module examines one of the most important violent Irish organisations that challenged British sovereignty in Ireland. Founded in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) (or the Fenian movement, as it was also known) was a transatlantic movement dedicated to the overthrow of the British state in Ireland. Fuelled by hatred for the British after the dreadful Famine in Ireland of the 1840s, the Fenians constructed a sophisticated organisation that was part secret society, terrorist cell structure and propaganda machine. It was the early forerunner of the Irish Republican Army. This document option investigates aspects of Fenianism from a range of angles. Using sources written and produced by contemporaries, we will consider the dynamics of the IRB and its place within nineteenth-century Ireland.
20 credits - The Putney Debates, October 1647
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Following the first English civil war there was political stalemate over the post-war settlement. By late 1647 there were calls for revolutionary political change, not least at the famous Putney debates. They came at a crucial moment in the development of the revolution, and successive editors between 1891 and 2007 presented the records of the debates in varying contexts in order to reveal the fundamental significance of the revolution. This module explores the background to the debates at Putney, what was said, and also considers how different editions of the debates reflect the shifting significance attached to the English revolution
20 credits - The Ten Commandments
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This module examines the Ten Commandments, perhaps the most well known `legal' code in the world. Through the close study of key primary sources from the Hebrew Bible and the cultures that informed its writing, all readily available in modern English translation, the module explores the ancient Near Eastern context for these commands, the four texts in the Hebrew Bible that might be given the name Ten Commandments, and the role these texts played in the political, social, economic, and ethical aspects of ancient life.
20 credits - Welfare children: the state, the family, and society in modern Britain
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This module charts the rise and decline of the welfare state through its influence of modern British childhood and on the family. With a particular focus on primary sources, it traces the ideological origins of welfare in British imperialism and eugenics, and is attentive to those who have been excluded from so-called universal entitlements. It engages with the scholarship of Black feminists who have termed the 'welfare state' a 'malfare state'. We will examine the everyday lives reshaped by the state - through healthcare, work, education, housing, and maternity services - in the second half of the twentieth century, paying particular attention to the way that the city of Sheffield shaped and was shaped by the welfare state. We are also interested in the way that the political economy, specifically the shift from Keynesianism to Neoliberalism - changed society and the state. How did ordinary men, women, and children experience major economic change, and how did they challenge - or promote - these changes? In Sheffield, a city shaped by steel and then mass unemployment, this is a particularly fraught history. We draw on a number of different historiographical and political traditions in this course, including socialism, feminism, and liberalism. Primary sources are central to our analysis. We nuance our understanding through sources ranging from private diaries, family photographs, and archival ephemera through to political speeches and to public buildings, including those we see around us every day in the city of Sheffield.
20 credits
Core Chinese modules:
- Chinese Language 3A
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This module focuses on receptive activities and written productive activities in the Chinese language at the post-beginning to lower-intermediate level. It acts as a transition between the teacher-centred learning required for the acquisition of elementary and intermediate language skills, and the autonomous and self-directed learning required at more advanced levels. More grammar points are introduced and consolidated. Translation and functional reading skills are extended, with longer and more complicated texts.
20 credits - Chinese Language 4A
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This module focuses on receptive activities and written productive activities in Chinese language at lower intermediate level consolidating the knowledge learned from semester 1. This module acts as a transition between the teacher-centred learning required for the acquisition of basic and intermediate language skills, and the autonomous and self-directed learning required at more advanced levels. Previous grammar knowledge will be consolidated and more advanced grammar points will be introduced. Translation and functional reading skills are extended, with longer and more complicated texts.
20 credits - Chinese Language 3B
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This module is focusing on oral and aural activities in Chinese language at at the post-beginning to lower-intermediate level. Every week students are made aware of and given the opportunity to practise spoken applications of specific themes, which is shared with the grammar and writing components.
10 credits - Chinese Language 4B
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This module is focusing on oral and aural activities in Chinese language at lower intermediate level consolidating the knowledge learned from semester 1. Every week students are made aware of and given the opportunity to practise spoken applications of given themes, which is shared with the grammar and writing components.
10 credits - Modern Chinese History: Beyond Revolution
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This module will examine key themes in the histories of China's short twentieth century, with a primary focus on interpretations of 'modernity' and 'progress', explanations of revolution, and the ways in which new approaches in scholarship have influenced our understanding of China's recent past. While the structure of the module is loosely chronological, the emphasis is not on the detail of events but on the critical analysis of broad social and political changes, and we will examine these through recent historical writing on China and a range of primary textual and visual sources.
20 credits
You'll spend this year studying abroad in China or Taiwan.
The year abroad is designed to equip students with more advanced language skills, as well as to immerse them in Chinese culture, enabling them to take part in a range of structured and informal learning experiences to develop their familiarity with the Chinese social, cultural and physical environments.
On completion of the module they will have acquired facility in operating with confidence with a Chinese language environment, possessing a vocabulary of around 3000 characters. Both of these elements are essential for progression to Level 3.
Where extenuating circumstances prevent a cohort, or a large portion of a cohort, from completing a complete academic year abroad, the School of East Asian Studies will provide alternative arrangements for students to meet the language learning outcomes.
In your Chinese language classes you will be introduced to advanced topics such as translation, interpretation and workplace language skills such as CV writing and presenting.
For history, the final year is designed to support you to become an expert in your chosen area and hone how you present your findings.
All students have the opportunity to take a Special Subject and a dissertation, as we think that they are important staples of a history degree. These modules are where you can focus on one of the areas of history that you're most passionate about and have the opportunity to become an expert in your chosen topic. You’ll use the academic skills and historical knowledge you’ve gained in years one and two to undertake focussed primary source research supported by one of our internationally renowned tutors.
Our thematic modules give you the opportunity to enhance your ability to look at history from different perspectives: you'll engage with the study of change over time and consider the comparative dimensions of a topic across time and space.
While our presentation module offers you the chance to further develop your employability skills by creating a digital artefact, such as a video presentation, podcast, virtual exhibition or dynamic poster, designed to communicate your research to a non-specialist audience.
You will normally take 60 credits in history.
Major/Minor option
You can choose to take 60 credits in each subject or you can choose to specialise by dividing your degree so that one third (40 credits) is the minor subject and two thirds (80 credits) are the major subject. This option is available through the level 3 module choice processes, you do not need to apply in advance.
History option module examples:
There are two dissertation options available. All students can choose to take the 20 credit short dissertation. Students who wish to major in history can choose to take the 40 credit dissertation; in this case the dissertation must be taken in combination with a Special Subject.
- Dissertation
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The Dissertation in History is an exercise of 9-11,000 words in which students explore an individually chosen topic involving problems and issues derived from a module taken at level two or level three. It is expected to consist of research at a high level where interpretation and analysis will be of importance. The balance between primary and secondary materials will depend on the topic and the availability of sources. In each case students work independently under the guidance of a supervisor.
40 credits - Making History Public
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This core module is designed to allow students the opportunity to produce a piece of public history. It will equip students with the skills required to effectively communicate their scholarly research to a non-academic audience, and develop transferable skills beyond the traditional academic skills of a History degree. Drawing on any aspect of their experience as History undergraduates, students will design and produce an accessible digital artefact presenting a topic or theme of their choosing. Students will be supported by workshops and seminars to identify suitable topics and develop communication and digital skills central to public history, and will also be encouraged to bring their extra-curricular skills and interests to this module. A virtual exhibition will showcase student work to the whole History community. In addition, students will submit an interpretative written exercise, situating and explaining the artefact they have created and analysing their experience over the course of the module.
20 credits - Short Dissertation
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The dissertation in History is an exercise of 7,500-8,500 words in which students explore an individually chosen topic involving problems and issues derived from a module taken at level two or level three. It is expected to consist of research at a high level where interpretation and analysis will be of importance. The balance between primary and secondary materials will depend on the topic and an availability of sources. In each case students work independently under the guidance of a supervisor.
20 credits
History thematic module examples:
Thematic modules are 20 credits each. Dual honours students have the option to take one thematic module.
- A Comparative History of Revolution
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This module takes a comparative approach to the study of Revolution as a way to gain a better understanding of significant transformation of the social, economic and political landscapes of entire societies, to question underlying assumptions regarding values and legitimacy, as well as to understand and assess the vocabulary of revolution which has come to permeate political language. By comparing different case studies, students will have an opportunity to engage with the rich and stimulating historiography in this area and to formulate their own interpretations of a subject that touches on significant questions about change and power.
20 credits - Decolonising History: Empires, Colonialism and Power
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This module examines the rise and fall of empires as processes that shape our contemporary world. It considers the growth and governance of empires, decolonisation struggles, and the telling of imperial history from the perspective of colonised and coloniser. In approaching this history from multiple vantage points, this module asks: who held power, particularly over knowledge production, both during empire and after empire's end? Drawing upon diverse historiographical traditions, and examining a wide range of time periods and places, we will question the centrality of empires in the telling of global history. In doing so, we will bring the past to bear on contemporary debates about race, globalisation, migration, and decolonisation. This module is, above all, about what it means to decolonise history, society and the academy.
20 credits - The Family
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The family is one of the most important forms of social relation across historical periods and places. But this seemingly 'natural' form of social organisation has a diverse history, as households and familial relationships were shaped by their cultural, economic, and political contexts. This module examines historical family structures and familial relations, from affection and care to authority and exclusion. We pay particular attention to gender and race, considering how intersecting identities shaped the family as we know it today. Drawing on anthropology, feminist history, and queer history, we also consider non-biological kinship: from 'chosen families' to surrogacy.
20 credits
History Special Subject examples:
Special subjects are 40 credits each. Dual honours students have the option to take one special subject.
- Cannibals and Christians: Mexico and Spain, c.1492-1600
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This module examines the extraordinary clash of cultures which occurred following the `discovery¿ of America, and the reciprocal relationship which developed between Europe and the `New World¿ in the sixteenth century. Focusing on the sixteenth-century discovery, conquest and settlement of Central and South America, especially Mexico, the module will address such themes as the nature of the encounter, the intellectual and cultural impact, trade and exchange, migration, evangelisation and empire. The module addresses the encounter from a wide range of perspectives, evaluating the encounter from the viewpoint of sailors, conquistadors, priests, historians, explorers, missionaries, administrators and the indigenous people themselves.
20 credits - Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Britain, 1923-1945 I
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This module examines three inter-related issues in order to assess the impact of fascism in Britain between the wars. Making full use of one of the best archives for this purpose in the country held here in the Special Collection of the University Library, first we examine the political organization, the ideas and the culture of 'native' British fascism from its inception in 1923 to the Second World War. Second, we move on to explore active and ideological resistance to British fascist and racist organisations by a loose coalition of Communists, Socialists, Liberals and even Conservatives, as well as the resistance mounted by those religious and ethnic groups most affected by fascist racial provocation and violence. Third, we will consider how contemporary interpretations of fascism, and formal and more informal relations with the European dictatorships, contributed to the National Government's policy of appeasement on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to the greater definition of what was quintessentially 'British' about Britain's war aims with the outbreak of World War Two. We will approach these topics by analysing primary source material, including political pamphlets and propaganda, newspapers, public records, memoirs, oral testimonies, visual material, film and recordings, and novels.
20 credits - Italy in the Age of Dante, ca. 1200-1350
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In the 13th and 14th centuries, northern-central Italy was one of the most urbanized, economically dynamic and culturally innovative parts of Western Europe, to the point that important scholars of the past have seen the Italian city-states as forerunners of modern concepts of republicanism and individualism. The cultural efflorescence of this period is still visible in the historical city centre of many Italian towns, in the frescoes of Giotto, and in the literary works of authors such as Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), best known for his exploration of the Christian afterlife in the Divine Comedy. And yet, Dante's Italy was also plagued by instability, civil wars and factionalism, as exemplified by the poet's banishment from his city, Florence, on account of political rivalries. How did the Italian city-states manage to flourish economically and culturally in such a fraught political landscape? How could they reconcile intellectual sophistication and religious revival on one side, and significant levels of violence and turmoil on the other? This module will make use of sources such as artwork, chronicles, literature and charters to explore various facets of the political, social and cultural life of the communes with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of this multi-faceted society.
40 credits
The module will introduce you to the political, religious, social, and cultural landscapes of the Italian city-states between the 13th and the 14th century. It will develop your awareness of the historiographical interpretations of the period and its key features, e.g., the communal movement, merchant capitalism, the 14th century crisis and lay sanctity. - Mao and the Making of Twentieth-Century China
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In 2015, citizens in Henan Province erected a 120-foot gold statue of Mao Zedong, which was swiftly torn down on government orders. Why does Mao still provoke such strong feelings? To some he is a monster: history's greatest mass murderer. But recently historians have painted a richer picture of Mao's China, trying to understand its social character, political culture, and role in Cold War rivalries. Focusing on the origins, character, and legacy of Maoist rule, and devoting most of our attention to the period between the declaration of the People's Republic in 1949 and Mao's death in 1976, we will use translated primary sources, a rich visual culture, and a burgeoning scholarly literature to explore Maoist thought and its critics; major upheavals like the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution; and everyday life under `Communism with Chinese characteristics'.
20 credits - Merchants, Mariners and Migrants: The English Overseas, 1570-1624
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The period c.1570-1624 saw a reorientation of England's global position, as increasing numbers of English people began to venture into unfamiliar regions. This course charts the nature and significance of their travels. We will encounter merchants in Europe, the Ottoman Empire and the far east, settlers and conquerors in Ireland and America, explorers in the frozen seas of the far north, and pirates in Spanish America. The latter part of the course focuses on the foundation of England's first `successful' American colony, Jamestown. Throughout, we consider the motives driving these ventures, and the complex nature of the encounters that ensued.
20 credits - Nomadland: The Peoples of the Steppe, 600-1000
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Nomads are the dark matter of history. Choosing neither to produce written sources, nor found cities which are the usual target of archaeology, they defy the typical means of investigation of the historian. Yet their political impact – from the Huns of Attila to the Mongols of Ghengis Khan – was vast. Fear of the nomad other, framed in terms of barbarism, is one of the defining literary themes of the settled civilisations who were their neighbours. This fear had a huge impact on settled society: the Great Wall of China was built to keep nomads out.This course asks how we can look beyond the fearsome, caricatured image produced by sedentary authors to reconstruct the politics, mentalities, and lifestyles of these crucial agents of pre-modern history. To do so, we will focus on the varied experiences of the nomadic peoples who emerged in the aftermath of the disintegrations of the great Turkic Khaganate in the seventh century. The Khaganate stretched over the vast, flat, grasslands of the Steppe, from China to Hungary and its successors settled regions across modern day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Ukraine and the Balkans. These new peoples and their cultural and political choices fundamentally transformed the region, and had a profound impact on the great empires around them, namely Byzantines, Sassanian Iranians, and the Islamic caliphate.Throughout, we will use material culture and sources written originally in Greek, Arabic, Armenian and Slavonic (all available in modern English translation), to ask: how do we write a history of a people who chose not to write?
40 credits - Permissive Britain? Social and Cultural Change 1956-74 I
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This module explores British society and culture as the nation moved from an era of austerity to one of unprecedented affluence. Key topics include the impact of affluence on class and gender relationships, the emergence of a national youth culture, changes and continuities in sexual behaviour, and debates about immigration and race. The unit encourages students to assess the significance of reforming legislation that relaxed the censorship regime, decriminalised homosexuality, enabled easier access to abortion, liberalised the divorce system and abolished capital punishment, examining the arguments of those who resisted, as well as those who championed the `permissive society'.
20 credits - Popes, Caliphs, Emperors, 1095-1229 (1)
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The Crusades are known as religious wars, in search of the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem. Yet they were only part of the complex interactions between peoples of different politics, religions, and cultures in the medieval Mediterranean basin. Using sources including histories, letters, buildings, art and mosaics, this module will examine how religion intertwined with medieval politics, culture and society. From Iberia to Jerusalem, and from Italy to Africa, we will investigate religion’s role in expressing political power and in the everyday life of the people who lived there. How was religious authority received, understood, and contested by contemporaries?
20 credits - Red Continent: Socialism in Twentieth Century Africa
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When we think about the history of 'socialism', we might first consider Marx and Mao, Lenin and the Soviet Union, even Castro and Cuba. Africa rarely features in these conversations. Yet no fewer than 35 African countries claimed to be 'socialist' at some point in the late twentieth century. There was little consensus as to what 'socialism' meant in Africa, however. To some, it was a homegrown ideology, with its origins in 'traditional' village life. To others, it was a set of imported theories that could propel anticolonial liberation struggles. Critics alleged that Africa's socialists were simply pawns of Cold War superpowers. Socialism's proponents responded that they were building a new future after empire - a vision which had evaporated by the end of the century, but increasingly of interest to historians today.
40 credits
Rather than seek an encyclopaedic understanding of socialism in every African country, this special subject module combines in-depth studies of key cases with the study of broader, transnational themes. We will examine the political thought of major thinkers, including pan-Africanists among the diaspora, anticolonial leaders, and public intellectuals. We will assess the 'African socialist' project in Tanzania and the military dictatorship in Ethiopia which preached Marxist revolution. Yet no leader or government controlled the meaning of socialism, as their visions were challenged by students, workers, and women's activists. Locating African socialism in a global context, we will follow the transnational journeys of these figures as they forged relationships with Cold War actors and contributed to the radical project of the Third World.
The thematic classes will trace connections and divergences between these socialist experiences in Africa. We will investigate the role that the media played in communicating socialism. We will understand how artists, directors, and novelists all engaged with the ideas of socialism. The module will take us into the villages, to see how rural communities responded to state-making projects which were imposed from national capitals. Then we will explore the concrete design of Africa's 'socialist cities' and the livelihoods of the men and women who lived among them. Finally, we will gain an understanding of life in post-socialist Africa and ask 'what's left of the African left?'
In this module, students will work with a wide range of primary source material. This includes excerpts from the work of major African intellectuals, like Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Senghor, and Julius Nyerere. Students will examine how these ideas were put into practice (or not) through material drawn from government archives and diplomatic cables. Moving beyond the vision of the state, we will also analyse student magazines, film, poetry, fiction, street photography and architecture. All source material and secondary reading will be provided in English, either as original or in translation. - Resistance & Liberation in South Africa: Gandhi to Mandela
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This module analyses resistance to segregation, apartheid, and white supremacy in South Africa. Drawing upon memoirs, oral histories, novels, films, speeches, news reporting, online databases, and document collections, we begin with the non-violent campaigns led by Mohandas Gandhi in the 1900s against the segregation of Indians in South Africa, and end with Nelson Mandela's election as president in the country's first non-racial democratic elections in 1994. We will explore the inspirations, nature, and effects of a wide range of forms of political, social, and cultural resistance by opponents of white supremacy - from ordinary people to elite politicians - both inside South Africa and around the world.
20 credits - Revolution, Dictatorship and Democracy in Latin America, 1944-90
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This special subject uses the three themes of revolution, dictatorship and democracy to examine the history of Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century. Beginning with Guatemalan Revolution (1944-54), this module explores key events over the next four decades, including the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the rise of anticommunist dictatorships across the region in the 1960s and 1970s, the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, and the 'Third Wave' of democratisation that swept the region in the 1980s. Throughout, we will identify and analyse regional trends in Latin American history while remaining attentive to national dynamics. In particular, this module will focus on two subregions of Latin America: the Southern Cone (especially Chile, Argentina and Brazil) and Central America (especially Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador). Primary sources will include government documents, speeches, visual sources and other cultural outputs, including song, poems, and testimonials. This mix of different sources will allow students to consider the ways in which gender, race, and class all shaped how different Latin Americans experienced the second half of the twentieth century.
40 credits - The Great Depression in the Age of Empire
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During the interwar period, the United States and European nation-states were thrown into near simultaneous and deep social and economic crisis, ushering a decade of de-globalization, which was spurred by deep financial and monetary crisis, the breakdown of international trade, protectionism, border closures, and world-wide disruptions in the production and circulation of goods and foodstuffs. But what did interwar de-globalization mean for the colonial world? This course will explore the joint crises of European colonialism and capitalism during the 1930s. Using case studies from the British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese colonial empires in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, the course will examine the politics of European imperial economic blocs while seeking to move beyond Western-centric understandings of this global crisis. Bringing together perspectives from political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural history, we will look at the workings of colonial capitalism, commodity production patterns, the role of imperial states in the management of colonial economies, peasant uprisings, and urban strikes. Sources may include pamphlets, novels, administrative documents produced by colonial states, peasants' petitions, labour control devices and objects (e.g. workbooks, tax receipts), films, etc.
40 credits
Topics for discussion will include channels of contagion of economic crisis to Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean; responses of colonial powers and nominally independent nations; the collision of imperial and indigenous capitalisms; debates about industrialization and manufacturing; overlapping political, social, and economic crisis; and the roots of decolonization. A century after the onset of the 1929 Wall Street Crash, and the beginning of a decade of global economic fragmentation or 'de-linking', what can we learn from the experience of countries which were then under formal and informal colonial rule? Did they manage to 'weather the storm' or did the crisis on the contrary reveal and exacerbate irremediable tensions?
This course seeks to introduce students to the various ways in which a crucial episode of economic crisis has been experienced and discussed in areas of the world which are known today as the 'Global South' and whose economic and political role will shape the twenty-first century. Through critical engagement with a wide range of historical sources, they will develop the skills to distil arguments and marshal relevant evidence. - The National Security State, Treason, and Individual Rights during the Twentieth Century
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National security scares over 'whistleblowers' such as Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Kathrine Gun have catapulted the image of the 'traitor' back into public discourse. At the same time, controversies over Wikileaks' political agenda and Russian interference with the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential elections were as much discussed in terms of British and US national security as a threat to the security of 'the West' as a whole. These conflicts stand at the end of a century that has seen the rise of the modern surveillance state and transnational security frameworks organized through institutions such as Interpol, NATO, and the Warsaw Pact states (until 1989/91).
40 credits
Over the course of the 20th century, more and more people saw themselves suspected of betrayal of the community. The First World War transformed older clearly defined criminal offenses of 'high treason' against the sovereign and their immediate family members to wider accusations of treason against the nation, state, and people. The rise of communism and fascism triggered the building of new domestic public security apparatuses in the interwar period. War crimes and genocide of the Second World War further complicated debates on the morality of collaboration with the enemy. In response, security agencies professionalized their work and the early Cold War saw calls for transnational bloc-wide security regimes to combat subversion by the Cold War enemy. Since then, state surveillance has come to be seen more and more as a constant everyday threat to privacy and individual rights after the digital revolution of the 1970s.
In this special subject, we explore through rich source material the political, emotional, social, and cultural dynamics that were at play when individuals or groups from across Europe, the US and Soviet Union were accused of betraying society. We will consider how people's ethnic, gender, and class background impacted their fate of becoming 'traitors'. Taken together, their cases will provide answers to the central question of how demands for the professionalization of the national security state have impacted ordinary people's lives and rights under different forms of government and how they shape our contemporary understandings of democracy and authoritarianism. - The Rise and Fall of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1640-1807
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The transatlantic slave trade is the largest forced migration in human history. Europeans transported 12 million captive Africans across the Atlantic Ocean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. This contributed to the development of a transatlantic economic system that linked three continents - Europe, Africa, and the Americas - and which funnelled wealth created through the exploitation of enslaved Africans into the hands of Europeans. Britain was the pre-eminent slave trading nation of the eighteenth century. From 1640 to 1807, British vessels trafficked 3.2 million captive Africans across the Atlantic to work in the plantation economies of North America and the Caribbean. This module traces the rise and fall of Britain's participation in the transatlantic slave trade, studying developments in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Britain, and exploring the linkages between the three. It begins in the seventeenth century with the corporate activities of the London-based Royal African Company, moves into the eighteenth century when non-corporate merchants based in the outports of Liverpool and Bristol dominated the trade, and ends with Abolitionist efforts to abolish British involvement in the trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The module is fully Atlantic in scope. Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources we will analyse the process of cross-cultural exchange on the West African coast, the horrors of the Middle Passage, the exploitation of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean plantation system, and the direct and indirect impacts of the transatlantic slave trade on early modern Britain. We will make regular use of case studies to explore the history of the transatlantic slave trade 'from below', foregrounding the lived experience of enslavement for captive Africans and the vital role of African Abolitionists in precipitating the process of abolition.
40 credits - The Road to Civil War: England 1621-1642 I
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This course aims to provide an intensive document-based analysis of the working of early Stuart politics on both theoretical and practical levels, and to use it to stimulate an informed evaluation of the roles played by a variety of ideological and political forces in provoking civil war. Particular attention is paid to the career and voluminous unpublished correspondence of one of the foremost and most tragic political figures of the period, Sir Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford. Strafford's unpublished letters, along with parliamentary debates, state trials, sermons, newsletters, and popular pamphlets will be used to tease out the private and public attitudes of both major political actors and the 'man in the street' towards the main political and cultural divisions of the pre-Civil War period.
20 credits - The United States and the Cold War, 1945-1975
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The Cold War shaped American foreign policy as well as domestic politics and culture for much of the second half of the 20th century. But how all-encompassing was the Cold War? How did non-state actors react to and influence the course of its development? And how 'cold' was the Cold War? This module will examine the Cold War with fresh perspective. We will revisit the traditional historiography, which focuses on high policy actors and U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. But we will also gain new insight from an emerging literature that challenges such a deterministic and elite framing of what was a global conflict that involved multiple actors at all levels of society, many of whom brought with them complex motivations that existed prior to, or outside of, the rigid Cold War binary. In addition to these secondary sources, we will explore a wide range of primary source material, from declassified State Department documents to Third World assertions of sovereignty to popular films and novels.
20 credits - The Wars for Vietnam: Empire, Decolonisation and Liberation
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In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Vietnam was wrenched by wars: a world war, a war of decolonisation, a civil war, the Cold War, and a war against its erstwhile communist allies. By studying these conflicts, we not only learn about modern Vietnam, but also the French empire, U.S. foreign policy, and communist internationalism in the mid-20th Century. As case studies, these wars shed light on larger global processes of imperial conquest, decolonisation and neo-colonial control, communist revolution and the limits of internationalism. As an archetype of national liberation, events in Vietnam also profoundly shaped anti-colonial struggles around the world and social movements in the United States and Europe, from Black Power to the women's liberation movement. This module explores the wars for Vietnam through the themes of empire, decolonisation, and liberation, paying close attention to Vietnamese perspectives, exploring the role of France, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, and uncovering the global reverberations of these conflicts. We will investigate the historiography which set the broad parameters of debate, as well as newer scholarship which has challenged these orthodox interpretations, and we will examine a wide range of primary sources, from government documents, memoirs, and oral histories, to images, fiction, and film.
40 credits - The West & the East in each other's eyes 1850-2000
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The idea that the 'East' and the 'West' are fundamentally different in their thinking and values and are locked in a mutually antipathetic 'clash of civilizations' is an age-old one. It has been argued by European and Asian politicians and writers alike, by imperialists and anti-imperialists, 'orientalists' and their critics, and has been manifested in a range of approaches and ideologies, including 'Orientalism', 'Occidentalism', pan-Asianism, pan-Islam, and Samuel Huntington's notorious 'clash of civilizations' thesis. It has fed into both colonialist and anti-colonialist thought. This course is intended as a case study in the history of ideas. We will investigate how ideas of a division between 'West' and 'East' have been expressed and developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries and how they have been deployed by politicians in a range of different countries and contexts. We will also examine some of the more subtle, alternative formulations of East/West cultural difference, assimilation and appropriation that have been articulated in the same period. The course will encourage you to rethink how cultures relate to each other, and about what is distinctively 'Western' or 'Eastern' about political and economic organization, human rights, democracy and secularism. Can we really talk about 'East' and 'West' as meaningful categories, and if not, when and how did people start using these terms and why, and what does that tell us about how we should understand the world and write about it? In semester 1, after an initial introduction of the themes and questions of the course, the next 4 weeks ('the West looks at the East') will analyse Western accounts of the East. The second half of the first semester ('the East looks at the West') then undertakes a chronological and thematic analysis of the different ways in which Asian governments and writers have understood, analysed and critiqued the West and its values. The second semester ('the East looks at the East') concentrates on how Asian governments and thinkers have understood the East, and their views of how far it can be said to enshrine coherent non-Western values. As well as studying transnational movements (pan-Asianism, pan-Islam and the Non-aligned Movement), we will also study selected Asian writing on democracy, human rights, nationalism, and secularism up to the present day.
40 credits
During the course we will be using a wide range of documents in translation - from constitutional debates, political tracts, government declarations, policy documents and educational literature, to travel accounts, speeches, letters, poetry and images.
The course is intended to help you to rethink how you understand Western and non-Western cultures and to provide you with a more informed sense of the roots and nature of current global geo-political and cultural tensions. - The World of Intoxicants in Early Modern England (1)
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Intoxicants were a key feature of early modern societies. This is as true for ‘old’ world alcohols like wine, beer, ale, and other fermented drinks as it is for ‘new’ intoxicants like opiates, tobacco, sugar, caffeines, chocolate, and distilled liquors that began to enter European diets after 1600 from the Levant, the Americas, and Asia. Focusing on intoxicants in England, this module considers a) the ongoing importance and, indeed, increasing significance of alcohols to culture, society, and economy over the course of the seventeenth century and b) the introduction and popularisation of new intoxicants over the same period.
20 credits
Introductory reading:
David Courtwright, Forces of habit. Drugs and the making of the modern world (2002)
Jordan Goodman and Andrew Sherratt, eds., Consuming habits. Drugs in history and anthropology (1995)
Phil Withington and Angela McShane, eds., Cultures of intoxication (1995)
- Tools of Empire? Medicine, Science and Colonialism, 1800-1950
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Western science and biomedicine have, for long, been seen as symbols and agents of progress. Research in the last two decades has, however, revealed their close ties with the history of colonial conquest and rule - so much so that scientific discoveries such as guns, steamboats, and quinine have been seen as `tools of empire`. This module will, however, go beyond this fact and discuss much larger questions of equal relevance. It will, for instance, deal with the question of the `consumption` of science in the colonies, the role of the colonies in constituting western science, the role of medicine in furthering colonial hegemony, the `reinvention` of traditional sciences such as Unani and Ayurveda under colonial influence, the relationship between scientific centres and peripheries, and post-colonial developments with respect to medical and scientific administration. In exploring these themes, the module will not limit itself to any particular region, but will draw upon readings from South Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
20 credits - Visions and Violence: race, empire and identity in mid-nineteenth-century Britain
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British expansion did not result from a single, coherent imperial strategy, or a fit of 'absence of mind'; it developed from specific cross-cultural encounters and competing colonial visions. Some saw the Empire as a place of adventure, others an opportunity for Christianisation, still others as a 'New World' in which to build a Greater Britain. These visions were always contested and challenged both overseas and in Britain. This module explores these contested visions and the impact of empire at home. It is structured around different 'visions of empire' including those of humanitarians; missionaries; settlers; travellers; scientists and the British public.
40 credits
Core Chinese language modules:
- Chinese Language 5
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This module is divided into four sections, each one focussing on a key linguistic skill which is demanded of adult foreign users of the language. These skills are: interpreting/translating between Chinese and English; summarisation of information bearing texts; writing in Chinese, with a focus on short reports and the interpretation of data; and speaking, with a focus on group and individual presentations. Group work, with students determining their own materials for study, is a key element of the module, enabling students to develop as independent learners.
20 credits - Chinese Language 6
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This module builds on skills acquired in Chinese Language 5. It is divided into four sections, each one focussing on a key linguistic skill which is demanded of adult foreign users of the language. These skills are: interpreting between Chinese and English; summarisation of information bearing texts; writing in Chinese - with a focus on short reports and the interpretation of data; and speaking, with a focus on group and individual presentations. Group work, with students determining their own materials for study, is a key element of the module, enabling students to develop as independent learners.
20 credits
If you have prior knowledge of Chinese language, whether through formal or informal study or heritage, you may be eligible for our advanced Chinese language pathway.
Course structure
The structure of your course will be similar to the standard pathway, with the same approved and guided module choice options available.
You will take the same number of language module credits, but will begin your studies at a higher level. Due to your advanced language ability, you'll go on your year abroad to mainland China or Taiwan in your second year (as opposed to your third year). This allows you to flex your language skills and immerse yourself in Chinese language and culture, sooner.
Year 1
In place of the Chinese language modules available on the standard pathway, you will take the following modules.
Your core history approved and guided module choices are the same as in the standard pathway.
- Advanced Chinese Language 1A
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This module develops receptive activities and written productive activities in Chinese language at lower intermediate level. This module acts as a transition between the teacher-centred learning required for the acquisition of basic and intermediate language skills, and the autonomous and self-directed learning required at more advanced levels. Core grammar knowledge will be consolidated and more advanced grammar points will be introduced. Translation and functional reading skills are developed with a range of texts.
20 credits - Advanced Chinese Language 1B
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This module develops oral and aural skills in Chinese language at at the post-beginning to lower-intermediate level. Every week students are made aware of and given the opportunity to practise spoken applications of specific themes, which are shared with the grammar and writing components
10 credits - Advanced Chinese Language 2A
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This module develops receptive activities and written productive activities in Chinese language at lower intermediate level consolidating the knowledge learned from semester 1. This module acts as a transition between the teacher-centred learning required for the acquisition of basic and intermediate language skills, and the autonomous and self-directed learning required at more advanced levels. Previous grammar knowledge will be consolidated and more advanced grammar points will be introduced. Translation and functional reading skills are extended, with longer and more complicated texts.
20 credits - Advanced Chinese Language 2B
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This module develops oral and aural skills in Chinese language at at the post-beginning to lower-intermediate level, consolidating the knowledge learned from semester 1. Every week students are made aware of and given the opportunity to practise spoken applications of given themes, which are shared with the grammar and writing components.
10 credits
Year 2
Your second year will be spent studying at one of our partner universities in mainland China or Taiwan, where you will take intensive Chinese language classes and be immersed in Chinese culture and society.
- China Year Abroad
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This year abroad at Nanjing University is designed to equip students with more advanced language skills, as well as to immerse them in Chinese culture, enabling them to take part in a range of structured and informal learning experiences to develop their familiarity with the Chinese social, cultural and physical environments. On completion of the module they will have acquired facility in operating with confidence with a Chinese language environment, possessing a vocabulary of around 3000 characters. Both of these elements are essential for progression to Level 3.
120 credits
Where extenuating circumstances prevent a cohort, or a large portion of a cohort, from completing a complete academic year abroad, the School of East Asian Studies will provide alternative arrangements for students to meet the language learning outcomes.
Year 3
In place of the Chinese language modules available on the standard pathway, you will take the following modules.
Your core history approved and guided module choices are the same as in the standard pathway.
- Advanced Chinese Language 3
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This module builds on skills acquired in the Chinese Studies Year Abroad. It is divided into four sections, each one focussing on a key linguistic skill which is demanded of adult foreign users of the language. These skills are: translating between Chinese and English; summarisation of information-bearing texts; writing in Chinese, with a focus on short reports and the interpretation of data; and speaking, with a focus on group and individual presentations. Group work, with students determining their own materials for study, is a key element of the module, enabling students to develop as independent learners.
20 credits - Advanced Chinese Language 4
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This module builds on skills acquired in Advanced Chinese Language 3. It is divided into four sections, each one focussing on a key linguistic skill which is demanded of adult foreign users of the language. These skills are: translating between Chinese and English; summarisation of information-bearing texts; writing in Chinese, with a focus on short reports and the interpretation of data; and speaking, with a focus on group and individual presentations. Group work, with students determining their own materials for study, is a key element of the module, enabling students to develop as independent learners.
20 credits
Year 4
In place of the Chinese language modules available on the standard pathway, you will take further modules in advanced Chinese language.
Your core history approved and guided module choices are the same as in the standard pathway.
The content of our courses is reviewed annually to make sure it's up-to-date and relevant. Individual modules are occasionally updated or withdrawn. This is in response to discoveries through our world-leading research; funding changes; professional accreditation requirements; student or employer feedback; outcomes of reviews; and variations in staff or student numbers. In the event of any change we'll consult and inform students in good time and take reasonable steps to minimise disruption.
Learning and assessment
Learning
You'll be taught by native speakers in Chinese in regular small group classes using custom made course material.
On the history side of your course, you'll learn through a mix of lectures and discussion-based seminars, studying modules that are directly informed by the latest research of our internationally renowned tutors.
The School of East Asian Studies (SEAS) has over 50 years' experience of researching contemporary East Asia and pioneering new methods for teaching East Asian languages.
SEAS staff, many of whom are fluent in at least one East Asian language, are internationally renowned specialists in East Asia, and bring expertise in various fields such as history, culture and politics.
In the Department of History, our internationally renowned tutors offer modules spanning four thousand years and criss-crossing continents, allowing you to explore great events, extraordinary documents and remarkable people.
Assessment
In the language programme you will be given regular homework assignments and take exams at the end of each semester. You will be assessed on the core skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Programme specification
This tells you the aims and learning outcomes of this course and how these will be achieved and assessed.
Entry requirements
With Access Sheffield, you could qualify for additional consideration or an alternative offer - find out if you're eligible.
The A Level entry requirements for this course are:
ABB
- A Levels + a fourth Level 3 qualification
- BBB + B in the EPQ
- International Baccalaureate
- 33
- BTEC Extended Diploma
- DDM in a relevant subject + B at A Level; DDD in a relevant subject
- BTEC Diploma
- DD + B at A Level
- Scottish Highers
- AAABB
- Welsh Baccalaureate + 2 A Levels
- B + AB
- Access to HE Diploma
- Award of Access to HE Diploma in a relevant subject, with 45 credits at Level 3, including 30 at Distinction, and 15 at Merit
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Two language pathways available: standard and advanced. For the standard language pathway no prior knowledge of Chinese is required. Prior study up to A Level may qualify you for the advanced language pathway. We offer a placement test in your first week at the University to ensure you are placed on a pathway appropriate to your language level
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Evidence of interest in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) demonstrated through the personal statement is also required
The A Level entry requirements for this course are:
BBB
- A Levels + a fourth Level 3 qualification
- BBB + B in the EPQ
- International Baccalaureate
- 32
- BTEC Extended Diploma
- DDM in a relevant subject
- BTEC Diploma
- DD + B at A Level
- Scottish Highers
- AABBB
- Welsh Baccalaureate + 2 A Levels
- B + BB
- Access to HE Diploma
- Award of Access to HE Diploma in a relevant subject, with 45 credits at Level 3, including 24 at Distinction, and 21 at Merit
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Two language pathways available: standard and advanced. For the standard language pathway no prior knowledge of Chinese is required. Prior study up to A Level may qualify you for the advanced language pathway. We offer a placement test in your first week at the University to ensure you are placed on a pathway appropriate to your language level
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Evidence of interest in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) demonstrated through the personal statement is also required
You must demonstrate that your English is good enough for you to successfully complete your course. For this course we require: GCSE English Language at grade 4/C; IELTS grade of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component; or an alternative acceptable English language qualification
Equivalent English language qualifications
Visa and immigration requirements
Other qualifications | UK and EU/international
If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the school/department.
Graduate careers
School of East Asian Studies
Studying China, Japan or Korea prepares you for a career in the world's most dynamic region. There are also many opportunities across Europe for people with skills in Asian languages and cultures.
Our graduates work in government and diplomacy, media and the arts, non-government organisations and international business - in professions as diverse as management consultancy, accountancy, marketing, research, language teaching and translation.
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Our history graduates are highly skilled in research, critical reasoning and communication. You'll be able to think and write coherently, to put specific matters in a broader context, and to summarise complex ideas in a discerning and creative way.
Our graduates have gone on to become successful lawyers, marketing executives, civil servants, accountants, management consultants, university lecturers, archivists, librarians and workers in museums, tourism and the heritage industry.
So, however you choose to use your degree, the combination of academic excellence and personal skills developed and demonstrated on your course will make you stand out in an increasingly competitive graduate world.
Companies that have employed our graduates include Accenture, Ernst and Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and DLA Piper. You'll also find our graduates in organisations ranging from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the Imperial War Museum and the National Archives, to BBC online and The Guardian.
School of East Asian Studies
in teaching and researching East Asia
Our courses are designed to immerse you in the languages and cultures of East Asian countries. You will be taught by native speakers in Chinese, Japanese and Korean in regular small group classes using custom-made course material.
Our courses are based on world-leading research and taught by experts whose work influences policy and informs public debate. Most of our staff publish in their specialist field and many of them have written books for major publishers such as Oxford University Press, Routledge and Macmillan.
The School of East Asian Studies is located in the Jessop West building, right in the heart of campus and close to the University of Sheffield tram stop. You'll visit the department to meet with your tutors and gain any support you need. Your lectures, seminars and language classes will take place in various locations across the University of Sheffield campus.
Facilities
School of East Asian StudiesSchool of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
In the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities, we interrogate some of the most significant and pressing aspects of human life, offering new perspectives and tackling globally significant issues.
As a history student at Sheffield, you'll develop your understanding of the past in a friendly and supportive environment.
Our internationally-renowned tutors offer modules spanning four thousand years and criss-crossing continents - allowing you to explore great events, extraordinary documents, remarkable people, and long-lasting transformations, from the ancient period to the modern day and across the globe.
You can tailor your course to suit you, discovering the areas of history that most inspire you most while preparing for the future you want with opportunities like studying abroad, work placements and volunteering.
History students are based in the Jessop West building at the heart of the university campus, close to the Diamond and the Information Commons. We share our building with fellow Arts & Humanities scholars of English, East Asian Studies and Languages & Cultures.
School of History, Philosophy and Digital HumanitiesUniversity rankings
Number one in the Russell Group
National Student Survey 2024 (based on aggregate responses)
92 per cent of our research is rated as world-leading or internationally excellent
Research Excellence Framework 2021
University of the Year and best for Student Life
Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2024
Number one Students' Union in the UK
Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017
Number one for Students' Union
StudentCrowd 2024 University Awards
A top 20 university targeted by employers
The Graduate Market in 2023, High Fliers report
A top-100 university: 12th in the UK and 98th in the world
Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025
Student profiles
Fees and funding
Fees
Additional costs
The annual fee for your course includes a number of items in addition to your tuition. If an item or activity is classed as a compulsory element for your course, it will normally be included in your tuition fee. There are also other costs which you may need to consider.
Funding your study
Depending on your circumstances, you may qualify for a bursary, scholarship or loan to help fund your study and enhance your learning experience.
Use our Student Funding Calculator to work out what you’re eligible for.
Additional funding
Year abroad
As part of this degree you'll spend a year studying at Nanjing University in China, one of the highest ranked universities in the country.
On your year abroad you'll continue to take intensive courses in Chinese language, building on the skills you'll learn during your time at Sheffield. Like in Sheffield, you'll also have the opportunity to learn about the culture, politics, and history of China through optional modules.
Visit
University open days
We host five open days each year, usually in June, July, September, October and November. You can talk to staff and students, tour the campus and see inside the accommodation.
Subject tasters
If you’re considering your post-16 options, our interactive subject tasters are for you. There are a wide range of subjects to choose from and you can attend sessions online or on campus.
Offer holder days
If you've received an offer to study with us, we'll invite you to one of our offer holder days, which take place between February and April. These open days have a strong department focus and give you the chance to really explore student life here, even if you've visited us before.
Campus tours
Our weekly guided tours show you what Sheffield has to offer - both on campus and beyond. You can extend your visit with tours of our city, accommodation or sport facilities.
Apply
Contact us
- Telephone
- +44 114 222 8400
- eastasianstudies-admissions@sheffield.ac.uk
The awarding body for this course is the University of Sheffield.
Recognition of professional qualifications: from 1 January 2021, in order to have any UK professional qualifications recognised for work in an EU country across a number of regulated and other professions you need to apply to the host country for recognition. Read information from the UK government and the EU Regulated Professions Database.
Any supervisors and research areas listed are indicative and may change before the start of the course.