Environmental History (MLitt) 2025 entry

For more details, including weekly contact hours, teaching methods and assessment, please see the module catalogue. The modules are examples from previous academic years and may be subject to change before you start your course.

• Compulsory

  Students choose one of:

  • History in the Making: Theories, Approaches and Practice (1 and 2): examines the development of history-writing and historical research since the Enlightenment, and the emergence of fields, trends and new approaches in current historiography.
  • Global Times – Plural Spaces (1 and 2): offers a strong foundation in the major approaches to comparative and transnational history as well as the emerging field of spatial history.

  You will also choose one of:

  • Disease and Environment (c.1500-c.2000): examines the manner in which sickness and death have shaped human history, both biologically and culturally, over the past 500 years.
  • Environmental Disasters: Crisis, Catastrophe, and Risk in the Modern World (1755 to Present): explores the nature of 'natural' disasters and the social and cultural factors that shaped and framed them.
  • Environmental History: Nature and the Western World (1800-2000): studies environmental history over the past two centuries in an international context.

• Optional

  Depending on credit weighting, students choose one or two optional modules. These can also be from one of the compulsory choices not taken.

  Optional modules are subject to change each year and require a minimum number of participants to be offered; some may only allow limited numbers of students.

  Students may also choose a Directed Reading topic which and is designed to encourage the development of skills of historical analysis through concentrated study. Depending upon other module choices this may be taken across one or both semesters. The Directed Reading topics offered will vary slightly each year depending on staff. 

  Here is an example of an optional module that may be offered:

  • Skills in Digital History: Maps and Text: leads to the acquisition and development of skills in the digital humanities and skills required for using specific historical sources.

• Dissertation

  Student dissertations will be supervised by members of the teaching staff who will advise on the choice of subject and provide guidance throughout the research process. The completed dissertation of not more than 15,000 words must be submitted by a date specified in August.

  If students choose not to complete the dissertation requirement for the MLitt, there is an exit award available that allows suitably qualified candidates to receive a Postgraduate Diploma. By choosing an exit award, you will finish your degree at the end of the second semester of study and receive a PGDip instead of an MLitt.