Taught M.Phil Programmes
The Department of History offers taught graduate M.Phil. programmes in:
- Early Modern History
- Environmental History
- Modern Irish History
- Public History and Cultural Heritage
- International History
- Medieval Studies (interdisciplinary programme with a specific History strand)
These degrees aim to provide students with a grounding in postgraduate research skills for historical study and to hone the analytical, written, and verbal communication skills that are highly valued and effective in careers outside the university and education sectors. While the research skills modules offers instruction in methodologies and approaches to historical study, the major subject modules and the dissertation offer students the opportunity to specialise in particular strands of historical scholarship. The taught M.Phil. programmes thereby provide an essential basis for further research in the discipline.
All courses are available on a full-time basis, commencing in September, and concluding the following September, or on part-time basis over two years, starting from each September. Dissertations are due for submission in September of the concluding year.
The specific aims of our M. Phil. programmes are:
- to ensure that students have a sound knowledge of traditional and technical resources: specific library collections, IT, databases, specialised research resources for language/archaeology
- to ensure that students acquire the necessary independent research skills: information retrieval, the ability to formulate research topics, to make oral presentations, and to present the results of their research in a sustained argument in the written format of a dissertation
- to provide an introduction to the methodologies and theoretical approaches of historical research
- to offer students the opportunity, in taught courses or reading modules, to pursue one or more of these strands at the highest level of intellectual demand
- to expose students to the scholarly process as evidenced in all departmental research seminars and special lectures
Students are expected to attend all taught components of the programme.