BA (Hons) History

Our History programs are designed to be flexible and adaptable to your interests. Every course is made up of core and optional modules to help you to move seamlessly from introductory learning in your first year, to more independent learning in your final year, by which time you will have developed advanced techniques for historical research. Core modules will stimulate your interest in history and immerse you in topics, periods, and places – many of which you may not have encountered before. These will serve as a foundation, both practically and intellectually, for more specialized courses later in your degree. There is an emphasis on the use of primary source materials, including newspapers, historical fiction, film, works of art, letters, and archaeology.

Year 1

• Medieval Europe and Its World
• Defining Moments in World History, c.1000-2000
• Histories of the Extraordinary and the Everyday
• The Early Modern World, 1490-1700

OPTIONAL MODULES

• The American Past: Explorations in U.S. History
• History, Media, Memory: The Presentation of the Past in Contemporary Culture
• Literature as History: Writing the Americas
• Modern History

Year 2

• Sources and Debates in History

OPTIONAL MODULES

• Rebels, Bandits, and Outcasts in Colonial American History (1607-1776)
• Saints and Society in Medieval Europe
• Power in the Modern World
• Creating Britain, 1536-1707
• A Civilising Mission? The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
• Work Placement for Humanities Students
• History of the United States in the Twentieth Century
• Company and Crown in India 1818-1928: the cultural history of the Raj
• The History of the Camp: From the GULAG to The Jungle

Year 3

• Dissertation for History – ISP

OPTIONAL MODULES

• Violence and Power in Antebellum America
• The Art of Dying: Death and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
• Crisis, Conflict, and Commerce I: From Union to Westphalia, 1603-1648
• Crisis, Rupture, and Opportunity: German ‘Modernity’, 1900-1933 I
• Sites of Sexual Conflict in South Asia I
• The contested city: a spatial history of Rome, 1870-1978
• Extinction: Existential Panic since 1945
• Sickness and Suffering? Health, illness, and medicine in England 1628-1808
• ‘Eyes on the Prize’: The Struggle for Civil Rights in America
• Violence and Power in Civil War America
• The English Civil War, c.1640-46
• From Sawbones to Social Hero? Doctors and medicine 1808-1886
• Gender and Sexuality in Victorian Britain
• Crisis, Rupture, and Opportunity: German ‘Modernity’, 1900-1933 II
• Sites of Sexual Conflict in South Asia II
• The Making of Middle Britain: The Mercian Moment
• The Making of Contemporary Africa since c.1945

Employability:

Studying History at Keele will provide you with important skills to carry through the rest of your life. You’ll develop the sort of enquiring, open-minded and creative attitude which employers are looking for. Some career options may require further study, but you could go on to work as a teacher, librarian, archivist, museum conservator, heritage manager, barrister, solicitor, civil service administrator, journalist, or a politician’s assistant or researcher.

Previous employers

• Primary and Secondary Education
• Home Office
• National Railway Museum
• Prospero Teaching
• Capita