World History & Cultures

Course detail Description

This MA course provides you with training in global and transnational history, while offering the opportunity to pursue a personally-tailored interdisciplinary education, through optional modules offered by any department at King’s College London, or from available MA courses at our London partner institutions. You will also be free to carry out your own research, and to draw on an exceptional range of expertise within the World History research cluster at King’s, which includes experts on Africa, South Asia, China, Latin America and the Caribbean, Australia, and the Middle East, as well as leading historians of the British Empire, Portuguese Empire, and French Empire.

We aim to provide training in the historiographical and technical skills necessary for further study, and also to allow you to develop special expertise in the areas of history and the humanities that attract you. Our course is particularly suitable if you have a clear research interest and are looking to continue in academic study.

Further literature

Course format and assessment

Teaching
If you are a full-time student, we will give you six hours of teaching each week through

lectures and seminars, and we will expect you to undertake 34 hours of self-study.

If you are a part-time student, we will give you two to four hours of teaching each week through lectures and seminars in your first year and in your second and we will expect you to undertake 16 hours of self study in your first year and your second.

For the dissertation, we will give you six hours of supervision and we will expect you to undertake 594 hours of self-study both for full-time and part-time students.

Typically, one credit equates to 10 hours of work.

Assessment
The majority of our modules are assessed through coursework essay, although this may be different for modules in other departments. The required 15,000-word dissertation enables you to research a topic of your choice.

Regulating body
King’s College London is regulated by the Office for Students.

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Structure

Year 1

Courses are divided into modules. You will normally take modules totalling 180 credits.

Required Modules

You are required to take:

• Advanced Skills for Historians (20 credits)
• Transnational history (20 credits)
• Dissertation (60 credits)

You will write a 15,000-word dissertation, on a topic devised and developed through discussion with your dissertation supervisor.

If you are a part-time student, you will take the required modules in your first year and you will write your dissertation in your second year.

Optional Modules

In addition, you are required to take 80 credits from a range of optional modules. If you are a part-time student, you will take 40 credits in your first year and 40 credits in your second.

The list of optional modules may typically include:

• The British Empire (20 credits)
• Harlem: A Social & Intellectual history since 1900 (20 credits)
• On Contradictions: Themes in the Study of the Early People’s Republic of China (20 credits)
• Making of Contemporary India: Political Power & Social Order in Historical Perspective (20 credits)
• Inequality in World History (20 credits)
• Obsessed with the West: Movements & Ideologies in Modern Iran (20 credits)
• Up to 40 credits from a range of master’s modules offered outside of the department, including those offered via the intercollegiate scheme by Departments of History from across the University of London, subject to approval.
• You may also opt to take an additional 20 credits in a Level 7 language module at the Modern Languages Centre.

King’s College London reviews the modules offered on a regular basis to provide up-to- date, innovative and relevant courses of study. Therefore, modules offered may change. We suggest you keep an eye on the course finder on our website for updates.