BA Modern Historical Studies

About the Course

The programme offers the opportunity to explore various political, social, military and cultural aspects of the modern period. It combines broad-based studies, covering several centuries and across different continents, with more focused modules that examine historical events and developments in greater depth.

There is an emphasis, particularly in the latter modules, upon source materials and encouraging you to engage with the modern period through surviving testimonies, diaries, newspaper accounts, political papers, cartoons, speeches and TV/video footage.

Alongside this, the programme introduces you to the historic environment around you by exploring various themes that have shaped the modern world, from nationalism and identity, to class and culture, war and memory.

In addition, you are shown different concepts and methodologies for researching the modern period that will form the platform upon which you undertake your own source-based independent study.

Award
BA

UCAS Code
V192

Course Length
3 years full-time; part-time study available

Entry Requirements

You will be invited to visit the University to discuss the course. Entry is based on individual merit.

The School has a dedicated Admissions and Recruitment officer who deals with all UCAS application, liaises with the various Programme Coordinators and arranges visits, and Open Days. The programme requirements are between 240 and 260 points and above or Access to HE Foundation Degree. However we are keen to judge each application on its merits, and thus will also look at non traditional routes though here entry may require an interview.

In addition to summative assessments the programme also undertakes a range of formative assessments that may include one or more of the following: peer assessed work, group presentations, journals, internet searches, document analysis, and bibliographic exercises.

Career Opportunities

• Heritage-related industries
• Civil service
• Teaching
• Local government
• Law

You will develop powers of analysis, logical thought and argument within a supportive and encouraging environment. It will be these skills of communication, understanding, analysis and self-management that provide you with a passport into employment. Types of employment could include museum and archive work, journalism, law, banking, local politics, all types of administrative work, marketing and advertising, and teaching.

Campus

Lampeter Campus

Typical modules

• Modern Britain - 1774-1997
• Britain and the Great War
• The Irish Question 1884-1998
• Battlefield Archaeology
• Modern America
• Genocide in the Twentieth Century
• The Bomb: A Nuclear History
• Cinema and culture of the 1960s
• Europe in the Age of Fascism, Communism and Democracy
• Cultural Politics

Key Features

• Broad range of modern historical topics
• Small group, seminar-based teaching
• Research skills
• Teaching underpinned by research
• Audio-visual resources used

Programme Specification

Educational Aims

The aims of the Modern Historical Studies programme are to:

• Introduce students to a varied and exciting range of topics, events and developments from the modern period (c.1789); 
• Allow students to study the history of more than one country, people and culture of the modern period;
• Enable students to study a variety of topics from the past across long stretches of time and/ or in some depth;
• Encourage students to appreciate the past not as a simple, fixed body of knowledge but as a complex, diverse and shifting entity;
• Enable students to appreciate the importance of historical setting and context when evaluating various events, developments or topics, gaining insight into the way past peoples and cultures might have conceptualised their world;
• Enable students to reflect more deeply and sensitively upon the world around them based on a broad and varied knowledge of the last two hundred years;
• Encourage students to appreciate and understand the variety of concepts, theories and methodologies concerning the nature of the past, and its relationship to the present, and more specifically to the discipline of History;
• Encourage students to appreciate the variety of written and material sources that have survived from past times and the not unproblematic connection they have to understanding and interpretation of that past in the present;
• Encourage students to critically engage with the rich variety of ideas and interpretations from different historians as they have studied and written about different aspects of the past;
• Encourage students to become independent-minded, self-reflexive and creative individuals;
• To enhance various subject specific and more generic key and study skills;
• To fully prepare students for the rigors and demands of employment and/or postgraduate study.

Programme Aims.

The following outcomes are based upon the History Subject Centre Benchmarking Statements (2007) and specifically referenced. On completion of the programme of study a student should be able to:

Knowledge and understanding

1. command of a substantial body of historical knowledge of the modern period; (4.1)
2. show an awareness of continuity and change over extended time spans;  (4.2, 4.3)
3. display an understanding of the development of history as a discipline and the awareness of different historical methodologies ; (4.5)
4. offer  comparative perspectives, which may include the ability to compare the histories of different countries, societies, or cultures ; (4.3, 4.6)
5. show an appreciation of the complexity of reconstructing the past, the problematic and varied nature of historical evidence;  (3.1)
6. display an understanding of the varieties of approaches to understanding, constructing, an interpreting the past; and, where relevant, a knowledge of concepts and theories derived from the humanities and social sciences (2.4,  4.6)

Intellectual Skills

7. develop and sustain historical arguments in a variety of literary forms, formulating appropriate questions and utilising evidence; (3.1)
8.  gather and deploy evidence and data to find, retrieve, organise and exchange new information; (3.3, 6.1)
9. read, analyse and reflect critically and contextually upon contemporary texts and other primary sources, including visual and material sources like paintings, coins, medals, cartoons, photographs and films; (3.1, 4.4, 6.13)
10. read, analyse and reflect critically and contextually upon secondary evidence, including historical writings and the interpretations of historians; (3.1, 4.5)
11. analyse and reflect critically historical problems in depth, involving the use of contemporary sources and advanced secondary literature; (4.4, 6.1)
12. appreciate the complexity of reconstructing the past, and the problematic and varied nature of historical evidence;  (3.1)

Transferable Skills

13. show clarity, fluency, and coherence in written expression; (3.1-3, 6.6-7, 6.12, 6.16
14. show clarity, fluency, and coherence in oral expression ;(3.1-3, 6.5-7)
15. work collaboratively and to participate in group discussion; (6.5, 6.16)
16. use IT and computer skills to gather and deploy evidence and data to find, retrieve, sort and exchange new information; (3.3, 6.1)
17. design, research, and present a sustained and independently-conceived piece of historical writing; (4.7, 6.6))
18. organise tasks and manage time effectively. (3.3)

Further Information

Joint Honours

• BA Modern Historical Studies and Medieval Studies - V191

Assessment methods

Assessment methods for the course draw upon a range of different forms and approaches that include a variety of written formats from essays (ranging from 1500 words up to 3500 words in length), book reviews, literature surveys, short 1000 word analyses, reflective journals, document analysis, palaeography, oral presentations delivered both in a group and individually, and both seen and unseen examinations.

Learning and Teaching methods

Teaching methods are designed to provide interest, variety and academic curiosity. Seminars, workshops and small group work are our principal means of teaching, though supported by lectures, field trips, revision and study groups. We are also offer one-to-one tutorials in which you can discuss aspects of your on written work such as help with the structuring of essays, or writing technique or feedback advice on a specific assignment.