History - MPhil

Our history programme offers research opportunities in areas as diverse as medicine, death, historical demography, gender, women's history and urban culture. As an MPhil or PhD student you will enjoy a research environment in which ambitious and original ideas can flourish.

Many of the research opportunities in history are interdisciplinary and are available for most periods of history and in most geographical regions.

You can find out more about MPhil and PhD supervision areas from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology. There are opportunities for joint supervision with Latin American researchers in the School of Modern Languages.

Supervision is normally available in the following subject areas:

Classical, medieval and early modern medicine

Topics include:
-Reception(s) of Hippocratic medicine and Hippocratic Oath
-History of medical ethics
-History and iconography of melancholy and psychopathology
-Medical history/historiography as an academic discipline
-Genres of medical writing
-Interface between medicine and literature, Thomas Mann and medicine
-Medicine and philosophy; medicine and law

The supervisor in this area is Dr T Rütten.

Death and burial

The history of poverty and poor relief in pre-industrial England (Professor J Boulton).

Gender, women's history and the history of sexuality

Britain (Dr H Berry); the modern Atlantic world (Dr D Paton); Greece (Dr V Hionidou).

Historical demography

The history of nutrition, famine and mortality; the history of fertility, birth control and contraception (Dr V Hionidou).

History of ideas

Revolutionary ideology in 18th and 19th century Britain and France (Dr R Hammersley); European historiography (Dr L Racaut).

History of psychiatry

Mental health and the 'asylum'; forensic psychiatry, criminal lunacy and crime; the history of the body; early modern social and cultural history of health; history of hospitals; history of sexuality; domestic/household medicine; travel and medicine (Dr J Andrews).

Early medieval Britain and Europe (Dr S Ashley, Ms A Redgate).

National identity, inter-ethnic relations and border issues

Japan (Dr M Dusinberre); North America (Dr B Houston); Russia and Ukraine (Professor D Saunders); Mexico and Cuba (Dr K Brewster); the Caribbean (Dr D Paton); Spain (Dr A Quiroga); Ireland (Dr S Ashley, Dr F Campbell); the Irish in Britain (Dr J Allen).

Politics, international relations and the impact of war

Modern British politics (Dr J Allen, Dr M Farr, Dr F Campbell); European fascism and the Nazi new order (Professor T Kirk); 20th century France (Dr M Perry); 20th century Italy (Dr C Baldoli); transwar Japan (Dr M Dusinberre); American Civil War and the United States in the 19th century (Professor S M Grant); the United States in the 20th century (Dr B Houston).

Urban history and urban culture

History of the press in early modern France (Dr L Racaut); 19th century Newcastle and the North East (Dr J Allen); 18th century urban cultures in Britain (Dr H Berry); 17th century London (Professor J Boulton); urban culture in the Habsburg Empire (Professor T Kirk).