History, BA (Hons)

Course summary

The History degree at Durham is designed to give you a sense of the diversity of human experience – geographically and chronologically. We offer an unusually broad range of options that will take you to very different places and times. You can also explore diverse themes and approaches, such as environmental and scientific history, visual cultures, and gender and sexuality. The course will equip you with critical and presentational skills that are valuable in many careers.Year 1 offers you an induction into advanced historical study, engaging with different periods and approaches to the study of the past.Year 2 raises new questions about the human past, setting these in specific periods and parts of the world. It develops your understanding of historiography - the history of history-writing – and gives you experience of writing an extended historical argument. You can also apply to add a placement year or a year abroad to your degree, increasing the course from three years to four.In Year 3 the focus is on intensive study and independent learning. The special subject guides you through the primary and secondary material on a specific period or phenomenon; the dissertation allows you to choose your own topic, and devise your own question, for an extended piece of writing. The dissertation is an opportunity to focus on a topic that fascinates you – and brings together the skills you have developed through your time at Durham.Throughout your degree, you will be encouraged to attend an extensive programme of activities, including research seminars and public lectures from high-profile guest speakers.

We have one core module in Year 1: Making History. But our students do not all study the same thing on this module: we teach it through multiple strands. You will choose a ‘strand’, focused on a particular topic. With the other students on that strand you will meet regularly in a seminar group, following a course of reading and discussion that gives you a grounding in the key skills you will need at later stages of the course to interpret and explain historical information. You will also take four optional modules in Year 1, choosing from a list of around a dozen. Some recent examples of optional modules: Decline and Crisis? Europe 1300–1500 Transformations in the Late Antique Mediterranean, c.300–c.700 CE Connected Histories: Early Modern Europe, c.1450–1750 The Atlantic Archipelago, c.1500–c.1750 Modern Times: A Cultural History of Europe, c.1860–1960 Power in Africa Imagining East Asia in the Modern World Wars and Welfare: c. 1900–1945 The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, 1607–1865