MSc/PgDip Historical Studies

You'll be introduced to methodological and practical issues in historical research.

This class explores the diplomacy of the post war world. It will provide students with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the key international issues faced by Britain, France and the United States after the Second World War. Students will examine the issues which strengthened the post-war alliance and those which challenged it.

This class examines cultural, religious, social and political conditions that favoured the emergence of an Arab political national identity in its regional variants. It considers a number of case studies and will examine the origins and development of Arab nationalist movements and their contribution to the creation of nation-states in the Middle East.

Advanced Oral History allows you to explore advanced oral history theory and practices as a valuable means of understanding the past. In weekly seminars, we'll examine the advantages and limitations of oral history as both a research methodology and an outcome by reading and discussing key texts written by leading oral historians and related practitioners. In addition, you'll gain practical experience designing and implementing a mini oral history project directly related to your postgraduate dissertation.

This class will teach students how to read handwriting from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth centuries.  It will introduce students to different types of hand (e.g. secretary) and the various contractions often used in documents from the early modern period.  

This class analyses core debates in the History of Pharmaceutical Science and the History of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

It uses a series of cases studies including: the establishment of pharmacology as a medical science, standardisation and the quality of medications, the globalisation of the medicinal market, pharmaceutical legislation, drug scandals and the politics of pharmaceutics.

Through analysis of the historiography and primary materials, students will engage with the ethical debates which have accompanied the rise of the pharmaceutical industry as a global giant.

This class explores the changing concepts of death in war in the European conflicts between the French Revolution and the First World War. From being left on battlefields to being granted permanent resting-places and being remembered in war memorials, this period saw fundamental shifts in practices and attitudes towards soldiers’ death in war. Students will therefore analyse the efforts to create meaning for soldiers’ sacrifices and to inspire future generations to follow in their footsteps. The underlying themes of this class will be the emergence of national sentiment and national consciousness and the role of religion in concepts of sacrifice in war. The class will focus upon Europe (including Britain), but comparisons will also be made with the American Civil War, in which treatment of the war dead and memorialisation shifted fundamentally, prefiguring changes that were to occur with the Franco-Prussian War only a few years later.

In this class, you'll explore radical political movements in the complex transnational space between Ireland and its massive diaspora, from the Great Famine to the Irish Revolution. Focusing on a set number of individual lives, you'll examine how Irish emigrants connected with their homeland and with other centres of Irish settlement, and mobilised in movements for social reform and national independence. You'll investigate the roles of class, gender and generation in political mobilisation, and identify how Irish nationalism connected with international reform movements of the era, including socialism, feminism and humanitarianism.

This class offers students the opportunity to spend eight weeks in a placement of their choice with museums, archives, historical associations and healthcare providers (only for students registered with the MSc in Health History) in Glasgow.

This module aims to provide students with an insight into the day-to-day workings of an organisation, in order to develop history-specific vocational skills and promote reflection on employability and also on the issues involved in disseminating history outside academia.

The module provides a vocational component to the History postgraduate taught portfolio, and aligns with similar provisions planned by the School of Humanities.

It may be of particular interest to those MA students not planning to pursue a PhD after their studies. Students will be asked to complete a small project or piece of research for their host and to write a reflective essay on their experience.

You’ll research a topic of your choice, under the supervision of a member of the programme staff. You’ll be able to use the extensive archive holdings relating to the history of medicine and of health and healthcare available in Glasgow and elsewhere in Central Scotland.