This diverse programme allows you to study the history and philosophy of science, technology and medicine from a range of perspectives to gain a wide range of knowledge and skills.
You’ll explore the issues, debates and trends that have shaped the study of history and philosophy of science, with core modules that will also allow you to develop your skills in research and analysis. You’ll also have the chance to specialise in the areas that interest you by choosing from a range of optional modules on topics such as science and religion historically considered, modern science communication, and realism and representation in science.
Supported by active researchers at our Centre of History and Philosophy of Science, you’ll benefit from expert teaching and have access to our excellent library resources. You’ll even have the chance to develop your research skills and gain experience as we develop our Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
We have world-class research resources to support your studies. The Brotherton Library houses extensive manuscript, archive and printed material in its Special Collections, including Newton’s Principia, a first edition of his Opticks and thousands of books and journals on topics from the 16th century onwards on topics such as astronomy, botany, medicine, physiology, chemistry, inventions and alchemy. You’ll also have access to the collections of artefacts across campus that we’re bringing together through the Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
The Centre also hosts a number of research seminars given by visiting speakers, staff members and doctoral students and which all postgraduate students are encouraged to attend. There are also regular reading groups on a wide range of topics and the seminar series of other centres within the School are also available.
From the start of the programme you’ll study one core module in both history of science and philosophy of science, introducing you to the approaches, debates and trends that have shaped these naturally connected disciplines, as well as developing your research skills.
You’ll build on this knowledge when you choose from a range of optional modules, allowing you to specialise in aspects of history or philosophy of science that suit your interests. You could study purely philosophical topics, such as metaphysics of science; historical topics like illness and death in the Middle Ages; or modules that combine the two areas.
Throughout the programme you’ll develop your skills in research, analysis, interpretation and communication. By the end of your programme you’ll showcase these skills by submitting an independently researched dissertation on a specialist topic of your choice. You can choose to take an extended dissertation and research your topic in greater depth, or alternatively you can follow your interests by taking another optional module.
If you choose to study part-time, you’ll study over a longer period and take fewer modules in each year.
Compulsory modules
Optional modules
Most of our taught modules combine seminars and tutorials, where you will discuss issues and concepts stemming from your reading with a small group of students and your tutor. You’ll also benefit from one-to-one supervision while you complete your dissertation. Independent study is also an important element of the programme, allowing you to develop your skills and pursue your own interests more closely.
We assess your progress using a combination of exams and coursework, giving you the freedom to research and write on topic areas that suit your interests within each module you study.
The subject knowledge you’ll gain from this programme, as well as the advanced skills in research, analysis and communication, will open doors to a wide range of careers.
This programme is good preparation for fields such as public engagement with science or the museum sector, but graduates from our School have pursued diverse careers in fields such as teaching, consultancy, business management, administration, accountancy and the civil service among others. Many of our graduates also go onto further study at PhD level and continue to work in academia.
We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.
The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.
This programme will give you an insight into the complex history of technology, medicine, scientific knowledge and methodology, as well as how they have shaped the world we live in.
You’ll explore the themes, concepts and debates in the study of the history of science through core modules. These will also allow you to develop your historical research skills, using our excellent library resources to work with primary and secondary sources. But you’ll also choose from a range of optional modules that allow you to specialise in topics areas that suit your interests, from birth, death and illness in the Middle Ages to modern science communication.
Guided by leading researchers and supported by our Centre of History and Philosophy of Science, you’ll learn in a stimulating environment with access to a wide range of activities. You could even gain research experience by getting involved in the development of our Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
We have world-class research resources to support your studies. The Brotherton Library houses extensive manuscript, archive and printed material in its Special Collections, including Newton’s Principia, a first edition of his Opticks and thousands of books and journals on topics from the 16th century onwards on topics such as astronomy, botany, medicine, physiology, chemistry, inventions and alchemy. You’ll also have access to the collections of artefacts across campus that we have brought together through the Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
The Centre also hosts a number of research seminars given by visiting speakers, staff members and doctoral students and which all postgraduate students are encouraged to attend. There are also regular reading groups on a wide range of topics and the seminar series of other centres within the School are also available.
In your first semester you’ll take a core module introducing you to different approaches and debates in history of science, technology and medicine, as well as how they have been used over time to help us understand scientific developments. You’ll build on this in the following semester with a second core module that will give you a foundation in historical skills and research methods, equipping you to work critically and sensitively with primary and secondary sources.
You’ll have the chance to demonstrate the skills and knowledge you’ve gained in your dissertation, which you’ll submit by the end of the year. This is an independently researched piece of work on a topic of your choice within the history of science, technology and medicine – and you can choose to take an extended dissertation if you want to go into even greater depth.
Throughout the year you’ll be able to choose from a range of optional modules, allowing you to develop your knowledge by specialising in a topic of your choice such as science and religion historically considered, or science in the museum. You’ll take one optional module if you take the extended dissertation, or two if you do the standard dissertation.
If you choose to study part-time, you’ll study over a longer period and take fewer modules in each year.
Compulsory modules
Optional modules
Most of our taught modules combine seminars and tutorials, where you will discuss issues and concepts stemming from your reading with a small group of students and your tutor. You’ll also benefit from one-to-one supervision while you complete your dissertation. Independent study is also an important element of the programme, allowing you to develop your skills and pursue your own interests more closely.
We assess your progress using a combination of exams and coursework, giving you the freedom to research and write on topic areas that suit your interests within each module you study.
You’ll gain a range of in-depth subject knowledge throughout this programme, as well as a set of high-level transferable skills in research, analysis, interpretation and oral and written communication that are very attractive to employers.
As a result, you’ll be equipped for a wide range of careers. Some of these will make direct use of your subject knowledge, such as museum work or public engagement with science, while your skills will enable you to succeed in fields such as business and finance, publishing, IT and teaching.
Graduates of our School also regularly go onto careers in journalism, the media, social work, human resources, PR, recruitment and the charity sector. Many also continue with their studies at PhD level and pursue careers in academia.
We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.
The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.
This MA allows you to develop an in-depth understanding of the history of health, medicine and society.
You’ll be trained in historical research methods and conceptual and methodological approaches to the history of health, medicine and society. You can combine British, European and African history under the guidance of leading researchers in History, History and Philosophy and Science and Medieval Studies. You’ll have the chance to focus on topics and periods that suit your own interests, whether that’s the history of health, medicine and society in the Middle Ages or the First World War.
Looking at the health of individuals, families and communities, you could study the human life course from birth to death, the experiences of medical practitioners and caregivers, medicine during periods of war and conflict, or the impact of health policy in different societies. It’s an exciting opportunity to explore how health and medicine have always been shaped by the social and cultural context.
Specialist resources
We have an exceptional range of resources to help you explore the topics that interest you. The world-class Brotherton Library holds a wealth of resources in its Special Collections, including historical works on health, medicine, cookery and medicinal uses of food, as well as extensive archival material about the history of medicine, surgery and nursing during the First World War and across the region since the eighteenth century.
You’ll be encouraged to participate in events run by the School of History’s lively ‘Health, Medicine and Society’ research group, including seminars, reading group sessions and a postgraduate symposium. You’ll also be able to attend a huge range of other events at the University of Leeds, including seminars at the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science and the Leeds Centre for Medical Humanities.
You’ll also have access to the University’s Museum of Science, Technology and Medicine, which is especially rich in its medical collections, and we have close links with the Thackray Medical Museum in east Leeds and its 47,000 medical objects.
The first semester will lay the foundations of your studies, introducing you to historical research methods, and key sources, debates and methodologies in the history of health, medicine and society. You’ll take part in a source analysis workshop and gain practical knowledge of documentary, visual and material sources in the university and local area which can be used to study the history of health, medicine and society.
You’ll also develop specialist knowledge of the development of the history of medicine and the social history of medicine as historical sub-disciplines, and the place of health and medicine within the discipline of history.
In Semester Two, you’ll build on this knowledge with your choice from a wide range of optional modules, including specialist topics such as birth , death and illness in the Middle Ages; Medicine and warfare in the 19th and 20th centuries or disease and sexuality in Africa. You’ll also have the opportunity to work collaboratively with partner organisations, such as the West Yorkshire Archive Service, by studying the ‘Making History: Archive collaborations’ module.
Throughout the programme, you’ll develop your knowledge across a variety of areas as well as key skills in research and critical analysis. You’ll showcase these skills when you complete your dissertation, which will be independently researched on a topic of your choice and submitted by the end of the programme in September.
If you choose to study part-time, you’ll study over a longer period and take fewer modules in each year.
Compulsory modules
Optional modules
We use a range of teaching and learning methods. The majority of your modules will be taught through weekly seminars, where you’ll discuss issues and themes in your chosen modules with a small group of students and your tutors. Independent study is also crucial to this degree, giving you the space to shape your own studies and develop your skills.
We use different types of assessment to help you develop a wide range of skills, including presentations, research proposals, project reports and essays, depending on the subjects you choose.
This programme will heighten your cultural and social awareness as well as allowing you to build your historical knowledge. You’ll also gain high-level research, analysis and communication skills that will prove valuable in a wide range of careers.
Graduates have found success in a diverse range of careers in education, research and the private sector. Many others have continued with their studies at PhD level. Your knowledge and skills will appeal to a wide range of employers, including in the charitable, education, healthcare, and heritage sectors .
We offer different forms of support to help you reach your career goals. You’ll have the chance to attend our career groups, meeting students with similar plans, or you could become a paid academic mentor to an undergraduate completing their final-year dissertation. You could also apply for one of the internships we offer each year.
Curating Science will enable you to develop an independent academic and curatorial practice at the intersection of histories, philosophies and social studies of science, science communication and museum studies.
You will engage with current debates in science communication and interpretive practice in museums, including cutting-edge art-science practices that are reimagining ways of knowing and being in the 21st Century. Alongside this, you will be encouraged to develop innovative practices of dialogic and participative engagement, developing their own ways of convening public spaces for debate.
You will undertake a range of active learning activities from developing displays, programmes and events to developing digital content and designing their own research projects. You will be supported throughout by an interdisciplinary academic staff team drawn from museum and curatorial studies and the histories and philosophies of science, as well as professionals from our partner institutions.
Students can specialise in their own areas of interest, through choosing from an array of optional modules that explore contemporary curatorial strategies, technologies and media, cultural memory, histories of medicine, audiences, participation and engagement. You will have the option of undertaking a negotiated placement with a museum or heritage organisation.
All students on the MA in Curating Science will take three core modules.
The History and Theory of Modern Science Communication allows students to explore how science, technology and medicine have been communicated to a wider public in the past. Students will identify how the processes and purposes of science communication has changed over the last two centuries and debate the consequences for science communication of the introduction of new media, ranging from the radio to the internet. The module addresses these questions by surveying the development of science communication since 1750, and by examining the changing theoretical perspectives that have underpinned these developments. Students will learn to re-examine the processes of contemporary science communication in the light of a deeper understanding of this history.
Interpreting Cultures is underpinned by action learning and puts contemporary curation in an international context. From the outset, students work on an interpretation intervention with one of the archives and collections on campus (such as The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery; Special Collections; Treasures of the Brotherton; Marks and Spencer Company Archive; ULITA ― an Archive of International Textiles; Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine). This intensive experience of project planning, management, collaboration and team working prepares students for the option of undertaking a negotiated work placement in the second semester or optional modules exploring audiences, participation or engagement.
Through our Advanced Research Skills modules, students are equipped to undertake assessments and ultimately develop their own research project. The modules build to a symposium in Semester 2 where students present initial research findings towards a dissertation on a research topic of interest.
In addition, students choose from a range of optional modules offered by the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies and the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science. These include the opportunity to complete a placement or consultancy project role in either curational approaches or engagement.
You will be taught by leading researchers and experienced practitioners in their fields, and you’ll benefit from a range of teaching and learning methods. They include lectures and seminars, gallery and museum visits, as well as hands-on experience of specific collections in library sessions.
We use a range of assessment methods including essays, presentations, assignments and literature reviews among others, depending on the modules you choose.
Through a combination of theory and practice, the programme produces graduates who are able to develop professional careers in the museums and heritage sector whilst retaining a critical and reflexive eye on their own practice and that of the institutions in which they work. It will equip you with a good understanding of the issues and approaches to science communication and curation, interpretation and engagement, as well as practical work experience ― a combination which is very valuable to employers.
To get a flavour of the kinds of career trajectories our graduates of allied MAs have taken see the ‘news’ section of the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage and the alumni pages of the School website.
We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.
The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.
In Semester 2 you will have the option to undertake a negotiated work placement to gain first-hand experience of curating science.
We have close links with many of the major cultural institutions and organisations in the region, meaning there are plenty of opportunities for you to explore. If you have a particular ambition in mind for your placement, we usually try to find a role that suits you.
Students on allied MAs have completed placements in organisations such as Leeds City Museum, Leeds Art Gallery, Harewood House, the Henry Moore Institute, National Science and Media Museum, York City Art Gallery, National Railway Museum, Impressions Gallery, The Tetley, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Lotherton Hall, Abbey House Museum and the Royal Armouries.
