Masters Degrees (Paleography)

About the course

Develop your knowledge across a range of fields including urban studies, gender studies, race studies, travel writing, postcolonial writing, autobiographical and epistolary studies. You’ll cover contemporary and recent American fiction and the way ‘real history’ appears in the texts. You are also able to take modules in American history offered by the History Department. If you intend to continue to PhD study, you’ll get essential research training.

Your career

You’ll examine early modern texts, language and culture. Staff expertise includes palaeography, rhetoric, news writing, the sermon, drama, and issues of political, sectarian and national identity between 1400 and 1700. Modules (including modules from History) can be tailored to suit your interests. You’ll complete one core module, optional modules and a dissertation.

Cultural life

There is always something going on, and there are plenty of chances to get involved. We have extensive links with arts and heritage organisations including Arts Council England and Sheffield Theatres. Recent poetry readings featured Carol Ann Duffy and Ciaran Carson. Our Arts/Science Encounters events bring together musicians, writers, architects and academics to explore ideas. The English Society, run by our students, organises theatre trips, guest lectures, and seminars. Students also get the chance to take part in drama and readings.

First-rate facilities

We’re based in a brand new building at the heart of the campus. There are computer workstations especially for postgraduates and a DVD library with viewing facilities. Our theatre workshop is a fully equipped teaching/performance area with excellent film-viewing facilities and audio suites.

Specialist resources

The University Library subscribes to the major periodicals and full-text electronic archives, including Early English Books Online and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. Special collections include an outstanding collection of Restoration drama, the Hope Collection of eighteenth-century periodicals, the Jack Rosenthal scripts collection, and papers of contemporary writers such as Anita Brookner, Marina Warner, Fay Weldon and Peter Redgrove.

Funding

There are a number of studentships and fee bursaries available, funded by the University. Deadlines for funding applications are usually in winter/early spring. For details, see our website.

Research training for PhD

If you intend to progress to a PhD, your course can be tailored to include essential research training. The same applies to students on the online course.

Part-time study

Part-time students usually take one taught module in each semester. In the second year, you’ll also take a dissertation module. For most courses, you’ll need to come in for one half-day per week. The MA Creative Writing is taught in the evening. Some modules, such as Theatre and Performance, may require greater time commitment. We try to be as flexible as possible to accommodate the different needs of our students.

Core module

Reconsidering the Renaissance.

Examples of optional modules – literature

Modules may include: Early Modern Paleography (i.e. training in reading sixteenth and seventeenth-century manuscripts); The English Civil War; The Country House; Directed Reading: Early Modern Books; Pastoral Literature (online module) and Shakespeare and Early Women Dramatists (online module).

Teaching and assessment

Teaching is by seminars. You’ll be assessed on your essays, coursework and a 15,000-word dissertation.

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The Early Modern Studies MA offers an innovative blend of skills training (palaeography and historical bibliography), object-based learning and museum visits. The core modules cover a wide range of disciplines, giving you a broad understanding of the early modern period. You can then tailor your programme to suit your interests, with over forty optional modules, covering the culture, history and society of the early modern.

Degree information

The MA will teach you critical reading skills, the ability to assess and weigh evidence, and construct persuasive arguments. It combines training in book history, bibliography, and paleography with a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the early modern period.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits.

The programme consists of two core modules (30 credits), between two and four optional modules (60 credits) and a dissertation (90 credits).

Core modules
-Early Modern Exchanges: Methods, Histories, Cultures A
-Early Modern Exchanges: Methods, Histories and Cultures B

Optional modules (indicative list) - up to 60 credits from a list which varies each year. An up-to-date list is available on our website. Below is an indicative list, showing modules that have been offered previously.
-Shakespeare in his Time
-Sex and the Body in Early Modern Europe
-From Renaissance to Republic: The Netherlands: 1555-1609
-Early Modern Science
-The Self and the World: Theoretical Approaches to Travel Writing
-Aztec Archaeology: Codices and Ethnohistory
-Early Modern Books and Their Readers: Historical Bibliography for Researchers
-I.T. for Graduate Research
-Paradoxes of Enlightenment: German Thought from Leibniz to Humboldt
-Political Thought in Renaissance Europe
-The Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe
-Trade, Money and Institutions in the Ottoman Mediterranean 1600-1914
-Early Modern Handwriting and Manuscript Culture for Researchers
-Giordano Bruno
-The Public Sphere in Britain, 1476-1800: Print Culture, Censorship and Propaganda
-Men on the Moon: Cosmic Voyages in the Early Modern Period
-Thinking with Women: Gender as an Early Modern Category
-Web 0.1: Early Modern Information Culture, c.1450-c.1750
-The Conquest of Mexico
-Witches in History, Fiction and Scholarship

Dissertation/report
All students undertake an independent research project which culminates in a dissertation of 18,000 words.

Teaching and learning
The programme is delivered through a combination of tutorials, seminars, workshops, presentations, class discussions and library, archive, museum and gallery visits. Assessment is through essays, annotated bibliography and the dissertation.

Careers

Many of our students have been accepted to undertake further study as research students both at UCL and elsewhere, including the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, York and Swansea. In addition our students have been successful in obtaining funding and prizes including the Bryce-Jebb and Dorris Russell Scholarships and the prestigious John Edward Kerry Prize awarded by the Malone Society. Graduates may also find careers in the heritage or cultural industries.

Employability
This MA will give you a very specific skill set, including manuscript handling and archival research. Depending on the optional modules you select you may also develop language skills and knowledge in information technologies and database use. These skills will make you very employable within the heritage or cultural sectors, as well as library work, the arts, and other roles which require information management.

Why study this degree at UCL?

A bespoke programme of study, unique to your interests; there are over forty optional modules, all taught by leading scholars, in a wide range of subjects including art, history, law, literature, politics and science.

Practical, hands-on modules, with ‘traditional’ skills such as palaeography and textual bibliography taught alongside the latest techniques in databases and XML. The programme includes fieldtrips to museums, archives and galleries.

Privileged access to a wide range of world-class museums, rare-books libraries and archives in central London. Located in Bloomsbury, it is a short walk to the exceptional resources of the British Library and the British Museum.

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We have one of the greatest concentrations of world-leading medievalists in the UK, covering the entire span of the Middle Ages and a wide range of regions from Ireland to Byzantium. This Masters in Medieval History provides you with thorough research training and a wide set of transferable skills in the conception, design and execution of a research project.

Why this programme

-Glasgow is home to the Glasgow Centre of Medieval & Renaissance Studies and the Centre for Scottish & Celtic Studies.
-You will enjoy access to the Baillie Collection, our prized collection of printed medieval and modern sources in Scottish, Irish and English history. The collection also offers printed state papers, Historical Manuscript Commission publications and a select collection of modern monographs.
-Our programme has strong links with the University's Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, giving you access to primary source material including an enormous collection of anatomical and pathological specimens, coins, books, manuscripts and ethnography.
-You will join an extensive medieval research community. Glasgow has active charter and chronicle research groups in medieval studies, a reading group and regular staff-student seminars. The annual Edwards Lecture is the keynote event in the calendar of this scholarly community.

Programme structure

Our History Masters are built around a hands-on research training course, specialised courses on historical and theoretical themes, and other courses developing your technical skills and other abilities like languages and palaeography.

If you choose to study Medieval History, there will be a guided selection of courses that will provide you with the specialised knowledge in that field. You will be taught through a series of seminars and workshops. Internationally recognised historians give guest lectures throughout the year.

In the final part of the programme, you will select a specialised topic and conduct original primary source research for your dissertation. You are supported in your research and writing up by an assigned supervisor with expertise in your field of inquiry.

Core courses
-Research resources and skills for historians

Optional courses - course options may include
-Chivalry and warfare in late Medieval Europe, c1300-1500
-Constructing faith: systems of belief and religious networks in the Middle Ages
-From antiquity to the Middle Ages
-Introduction to medieval manuscript studies
-Barbarians in the Mediterranean
-Popular revolt in the late Middle Ages
-The Crusades
-The Normans
-Medieval paleography

To widen your approach and develop an interdisciplinary perspective, you are also strongly encouraged to take one or two complementary courses in cognate subjects, such as:
-Explorations in the Classical tradition
-Inventing the 'Clash of Civilisations': East against West from Homer to Hadrian
-Approaching the past: sources and methods in medieval Scottish and Celtic Studies
-Themes in later medieval Scottish archaeology
-Early Christian monuments of Scotland
-Heritage and cultural informatics

Courses in Latin, Scottish literature, English literature, theology, history of art and other College of Arts subjects can also be studied, by agreement with the programme convener.

Career Prospects

Apart from continuing to study a PhD, you can transfer the arts research skills and methods you learn on this programme to positions in the public and private sectors, such as heritage, policy and projects, journalism and teaching.

Positions held by recent History graduates include Editor Business & History Products, Lead Scholar/Instructor and Secretary.

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The MA in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture is offered by the Warburg Institute in collaboration with the National Gallery, London. The purpose of the programme is to provide high level linguistic, archive and research skills for a new generation of academic art historians and museum curators. The art historical and scholarly traditions of the Warburg Institute are linked to the practical experience and skills of the National Gallery to provide an academic programme which will equip students either as academic art historians with serious insight into the behind the scenes working of a great museum or as curators with the research skills necessary for high-level museum work.

This twelve-month, full-time programme provides an introduction to:

Museum knowledge, which covers all aspects of curatorship including the technical examination of paintings, connoisseurship, materials and conservation, attribution, provenance and issues relating to display.
Art history and Renaissance culture to increase students’ understanding of methods of analysing the subjects of works of art and their knowledge of Renaissance art works and the conditions in which they were commissioned, produced and enjoyed.
Current scholarship and professional practice in these areas as well as new and emerging areas of research and scholarship.
The programme will be taught through classes and supervision by members of the academic staff of the Warburg Institute and by National Gallery curatorial and archival experts. The teaching staff of the Warburg Institute are leading professors and academics in their field who have published widely and are involved with research related to the topics they teach.

Structure

All students will take three core modules and two optional modules. The core modules include language and paleography classes, which will be selected following an individual language audit for each student, and are spread over two terms. The optional subjects will vary from year to year and students must select at least one in an art historical field.

Core courses:

Art History – Iconology – Dr Paul Taylor
Language, Paleographical and Archive Skills – Various tutors for language and palaeography classes; Dr Claudia Wedepohl (The Warburg Institute) and Mr Alan Crookham (National Gallery) for archive skills
Curatorship in the National Gallery – Curatorial, conservation and scientific staff of the National Gallery, including Dr Ashok Roy, Dr Susanne Avery-Quash, Mr Larry Keith and Ms Rachel Billinge
Optional courses (two to be chosen):

Artistic Intentions 1400 - 1700 – Dr Paul Taylor
Islamic Authorities and Arabic Elements in the Renaissance – Professor Charles Burnett
Music in the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance - Professor Charles Burnett
New Worlds, Ancient Texts: Renaissance Intellectual History and the Discovery of the Americas - Dr Philipp Nothaft
Renaissance Art Literature – Dr François Quiviger
Renaissance Philosophy – Dr Guido Giglioni
Renaissance Material Culture – Dr Rembrandt Duits and Dr François Quiviger
Sin and Sanctity in the Reformation – Professor Alastair Hamilton

Students will also be encouraged to attend the Director’s weekly seminar on Work in Progress and any of the other regular seminars held in the Institute that may be of interest to them. These at present include History of Art and Maps and Society. The third term and summer will be spent in researching and writing a dissertation, under the guidance of a supervisor from the academic staff of the Warburg Institute or a member of staff from the National Gallery.

Assessment

The usual format for classes is a weekly seminar. All students are required to submit three essays of 4,000 words, one at the beginning of the second term and the remaining two at the beginning of the third term. A dissertation of 15,000 words, on a topic agreed by the student and supervisor, has to be submitted by 30 September. The course is examined on these four pieces of written work, a catalogue entry (submitted at the end of the first term), and examinations in language, paleographical and archive skills. Students are allocated a course tutor and, in addition, are encouraged to discuss their work with other members of the staff at the Warburg Institute and the National Gallery. Because of the small numbers involved (places are limited to 12 per year), students have unusually frequent contact, formal and informal, with their teachers.

Mode of study

12 months full-time only.

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The Department of English and Humanities offers committed, enthusiastic and dynamic research-based teaching, with a constantly evolving curriculum sensitive to developments in contemporary culture.

We actively foster the creation of a lively graduate intellectual community and our students' professional development. A large number of our recent PhD graduates have successfully obtained permanent academic posts in leading universities in Britain, the United States and other countries.

We welcome applications for research in all areas of English, cultural studies and related areas, including: Old English, Old Norse, medieval literature and culture, the Renaissance and early modern periods, the Enlightenment, Romantic and Victorian studies, the modern and contemporary periods, literary and cultural theory, gender studies, theatre studies, poetics and creative writing (including practice-based research).

Why study this course at Birkbeck?

Arts and humanities courses at Birkbeck are ranked third best in London and 11th in the UK in the Times Higher Education 2015-16 World University Subject Rankings.
With more than 100 students undertaking research for MPhil/PhDs, Birkbeck's Department of English and Humanities has a large and thriving postgraduate community - the largest body of graduate students in English studies in the University of London. Supervision is available in literature from Old Icelandic to contemporary writing, and we are also well regarded for our work on interdisciplinary research topics in cultural history and theory.
We place great emphasis on ensuring that graduate supervision is thorough, professionally conducted and leads to the successful completion of a thesis. We offer a dedicated research skills course at the start of the degree with the option of a paleography course for those working on early periods. As well as observing strict guidelines on supervision, a senior member of staff acts as director of graduate studies and co-ordinates the monitoring of our students' progress.
A termly graduate forum allows students formally to discuss issues of graduate provision and resources with staff.

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The MPhil in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures provides you with the critical and theoretical tools to enable you to undertake in-depth study of specific aspects of European literature and culture or Latin American and Francophone contexts.

The course introduces you to a broad range of critical theory concepts and allows you to write a short thesis. Students take three taught courses consisting of lectures and seminars, one of which is a core course in critical theory.

Visit the website: http://www.graduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/directory/mmmmmpelc

Course detail

During Lent term, students take two modules chosen from a range of module options. Two modules are run in conjunction with the MPhil in Latin American Studies, one of which is a module on Latin American Film. It is also possible to borrow modules from the MPhil in Screen Media and Cultures, and the MPhil in English Studies: Criticism and Culture, run by the Faculty of English.

Although not all students may wish to progress to higher research, this MPhil programme is designed to prepare students for continuation to PhD work. This preparation includes the academic and research training provided by the course content itself but also advice and support with PhD applications, funding applications and the drafting of a research proposal.

The Medieval and Early Modern pathway is aimed at students who wish to specialize in subjects linked to Medieval and/or Early Modern studies. The course offers tailored training to students working in this field, providing theoretical and practical tools to read, understand and work on pre-modern sources. The pathway is a flexible structure that can be adjusted to particular needs and interests offering a wide range of approaches to a variety of texts and historical contexts. This course is particularly suited to students wishing to pursue their graduate studies further and work on a PhD in Medieval and/or Early Modern studies. Students interested will have to register to the pathway at the beginning of the academic year.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the programme students will have:

1. developed a knowledge of critical theory and an ability to work with theory or specific critical approaches;
2. developed a deeper knowledge of one or more areas of European Literature & Culture and of the critical debates within that (or those) area(s);
3. developed more advanced critical judgement and sensitivity to literary texts;
4. demonstrated advanced skills in literary analysis;
5. developed intellectual and practical research skills;
6. presented their own ideas in a public forum.

Format

The EuroLit MPhil is a nine-month course that runs from October to June of any given academic year. It is classified as a research Master's. Students are expected to submit coursework and a thesis during the year, as follows:

Michaelmas Term: Core Course

During the first term of study, students attend weekly lectures and mini-seminars designed to give them a broad insight into European literature and culture. At the end of this term, they submit one 4,500-word essay. The essay focuses on a specific theoretical framework or critical approach. Additionally those following the early modern and medieval pathway may submit a paleography exercise as assessment for this course. Two hours of individual supervision are provided.

Lent Term: Modules

Students can choose from a range of module options. Some are shared with different MPhils (e.g. Screen Media and Cultures) and other Departments and Faculties within the University, such as Latin American Studies. (The list of modules can change from year to year depending on the availability of academic staff.)

During Lent Term, students attend weekly group seminars led by the module covenor, lasting around 1.5 to 2 hours per week per module. In addition, two hours of individual supervision (per essay) will be provided as students draft their module essays. Essays are submitted at the end of Lent Term.

Examples of modules

- Modern and Contemporary French and Francophone Culture: Articulations of the Real
- Searching for Happiness
- Identity and hybridity in Arthurian romance
- The alterity of medieval literature
- The Enlightenment and its Critics: from Kant to Foucault
- Memory and Subjectivity in the German Novel
- History of the Book, 1450-1650
- The Modern City
- Marginalities in Nineteenth-Century European Culture
- Europe and the Renaissance
- New Commitments: Literature, Cinema and Culture in Italy 1960 - present
- Dante: Medieval and Modern
- Women Writers in Early Modern Italy
- The Culture of East Slavic Lands from Rus to the Battle of Poltava
- Literature and Nationalism in Russia and Eastern Europe
- Revolutionising Body and Mind in Early Twentieth-Century Russia
- Al-Andalus and España: Translatio and Tolerance
- Golden Age Literature and Culture: The Baroque Marvel
- Iberian Voices
- The Consolidation and Crisis of Representation in Ibero-American Literature
- Latin American Literary Culture
- Latin American Film and Visual Arts

Assessment - Easter Term

During this term, students write a thesis. Theses must, according to the criteria laid down by the Board of Graduate Studies, 'represent a contribution to learning'. Theses must be written in English. The arrangements for their preparation are similar to those for the essays. Titles are chosen by students, in consultation with module convenors and/or prospective supervisors, and then have to be approved by the Faculty Degree Committee.

Topics and precise thesis titles must be submitted by a specific deadline in Lent Term. Up to this point the Course Director is the titular supervisor of MPhil students, but once the thesis topics are approved, a specialist supervisor is appointed for each student. Students are entitled to up to four hour-long sessions with their supervisor. (In the event that a thesis is co-supervised, a candidate may expect two hours of individual teaching from each supervisor. Only one supervisor should comment on the full draft of the thesis.)

Continuing

For those applying to continue from the MPhil to PhD, the minimum academic standard is a distinction on the MPhil.

How to apply: http://www.graduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying

Funding Opportunities

General Funding Opportunities http://www.graduate.study.cam.ac.uk/finance/funding

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The MA in Music (Historical Musicology) is designed to help musicians of all kinds to work with original sources, to read and edit documents, and to embark upon their own research- http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-music-historical-musicology/

The programme encourages an awareness of, and engagement with, the most recent critical theories of music. It's designed to provide preparation for those who wish to be involved in teaching, editorial work, journalistic criticism, lecturing, research at MPhil/PhD level, broadcasting, librarianship or historically aware performance.

The core modules provide systematic introductions to:

paleography
codicology
transcription
editing
archival work
music printing
The options either focus upon the conceptual and critical fields within which musicologists operate or provide access to a range of repertories and musical cultures.

The skills learnt in your coursework will culminate in the methods and approaches demonstrated in your dissertation.

The course is enhanced by visits to the British Library, Sotheby’s auction house, and other relevant institutions in and around London.

Find out more about the MA in Music.

Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Anthony Pryer.

Modules & Structure

Core modules:
Sources and Resources- 30 credits
Working with Original Musical Documents- 30 credits

Option modules:
Contemporary Ethnomusicology- 30 credits
Contemporary Music: Practices and Debates- 30 credits
Philosophies of Music- 30 credits
Soviet and Post-Soviet Music and Politics- 30 credits
Interpretation, Meaning and Performance- 30 credits
Ethnographic Film and Music Research-30 credits
Performance as Research-30 credits

Skills

You'll develop investigation and evaluation skills, intellectual skills in music and specific research skills.

Careers

The programme is designed to provide preparation for those who wish to be involved in teaching, editorial work, journalistic criticism, lecturing, research at MPhil/PhD level, broadcasting, librarianship, or historically aware performance.

Funding

Please visit http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/fees-funding/ for details.

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