History
Open your mind to the past and the present, with topics that stretch from the birth of civilisation right up to the present day.
About the programme
UCAS Code: BA Combined Honours (Y001)
Study from a broad programme that spans a wide range of times and places. Reach back into pre-history or fast-forward to the present day with topics covering the history of:
- Britian
- Europe
- North and South America
- the Islamic world
- South and East Asia
History at Newcastle has an excellent international reputation for research, which feeds directly into your teaching.
Explore and evaluate various forms of evidence, including written and material records and oral testimony. Develop skills in:
- critical analysis
- communication
- research
Your teaching in Stages 1 and 2 is a balance between lectures and seminars. In Stage 3, the emphasis is almost entirely on seminars. Your assessment is in a range of forms including:
- coursework
- documentary commentaries
- group presentations
- literature reviews and essays
- written examinations
Our course structure has its foundation in British, European and world history. This enables you to make informed choices about the particular history you'd like to choose as options.
Offered by the School of History, Classics and Archaeology
You can find out more about the various social activities, lectures and academic trips organised by our History Society
Stage 1
Students study either 40 or 60 credits from the list below in Stage 1.
Select the module code for specific module information including the module summary and aims, knowledge and skills you'll gain, and the module leader.
All Students are required to take the following compulsory module:
| Module Code | Module Title | Credit Value | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| HIS1100 | Evidence and Argument (Compulsory) | 20 | 1 |
Students can either pick one further module (if studying a total of 40 credits of History) or two further modules (if studying a total of 60 credits of History) from the following list:
| Module Code | Module Title | Credit Value | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| HCA1001 | Slavery | 20 | 1 |
| HCA1003 | Global Middle Ages | 20 | 2 |
| HCA1007 | Stuff: Living in a Material World | 20 | 2 |
| HCA1008 | Global Ancient Histories | 20 | 1 |
| HIS1101 | Historical Sources and Methods | 20 | 2 |
| HIS1102 | History Lab I | 20 | 1 |
| HIS1103 | Histroy Lab II | 20 | 2 |
| HIS1104 | Introduction to Public History | 20 | 2 |
| HIS1105 | What is History For? | 20 | 1 |
Stage 2
Students study either 40, 60 or 80 credits from the list below in Stage 2.
Select the module code for specific module information including the module summary and aims, knowledge and skills you'll gain, and the module leader.
| Module Code | Module Title | Credit Value | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARA2011 | From Lascaux to Knossos: Prehistoric Europe | 20 | 2 |
| ARA2091 | Archaeology of Roman Empire: The Roman World from Augustus to Justinian | 20 | 2 |
| ARA2092 | The Medieval World: AD 400-1500 | 20 | 1 |
| ARA2097 | Colonial Worlds: History & Archaeology | 20 | 2 |
| CAH2006 | Hellenistic Empires from Alexander to Cleopatra | 20 | 1 |
| CAH2017 | The Roman World from Hadrian to Heraclius | 20 | 2 |
| CAH2020 | Greek and Roman Religions | 20 | 2 |
| CAH2061 | Slavery in Greco-Roman antiquity | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2027 | Africa: History of a Continent | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2219 | Oral History and Memory | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2240 | Greece from ancient to modern | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2301 | Communications in Medieval World, from Europe to Asia: Prayer, Poetry, Pictures and Travel | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2304 |
Crafting History: The Dissertation Proposal Note: Recommended for any students considering a History dissertation in Final year |
20 | 2 |
| HIS2306 | Famines in History | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2308 | History and Film: Representing the Past | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2309 | East Asia from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2315 | Violence in the American South: From the Colonial Era to Civil Rights | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2316 | Researching History | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2317 | The Aftermath of the War in Europe and Asia, 1945-1956 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2318 | Revolutions of the Mind: European Thought, 1550-1750 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2320 | The Supernatural: The Cultural History of Occult Forces | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2321 | Destroying Nature: Disasters, Diseases and Environmental Injustice | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2322 | Diversities of Sexuality and Gender in History | 20 | 1 |
| HIS2323 | A History of Contemporary Britain | 20 | 2 |
| HIS2325 | The Mediterranean: a connected past | 20 | 1 |
| LAS2030 | Comparative History of Hispano-America and Brazil: From Independence to the Mexican Revolution (1789/1810-1917) | 20 | 1 |
Stage 3
ALL STAGE 3 HIS MODULES ARE CAPPED AT 40 APART FROM HIS3000, HIS3020 and HIS3036 WHICH ARE NOT CAPPED. ARA and CAH modules are not capped.
Students are allowed to take a maximum of two HIS coded specialist subject modules; one in each Semester. Students studying 60 or 80 credits in History can do so by taking two special subject modules (one in each Semester) plus non-specialist modules that are not capped i.e. HIS3000, HIS3020 and HIS3036, or the ARA and CAH modules from the list below.
Before module pre-registration opens in the Student Portal (on Tuesday 30 April 2024), students are required to submit their preferences for their specialist subject module(s) (in ranked order) using a separate web-based form, the link for which is:
https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/newcastle/history-module-selection-2024
This form will open at 09:00am on Monday 22nd April 2024 and close at mid-day (12noon) on Friday 26th April 2024. There is no rush to fill in this form during the 5-day period that it is open as allocations will not be made based on timing, however, it must be submitted correctly before it closes. At the end of the form, there is a free text box where students (if they wish) can tell us why a certain choice is particularly important to them. When completing the form please note that:
Students will be asked to indicate if they want to take a Semester 1 Special subject and/or a Semester 2 Special subject. For each subject chosen you will be asked to provide a ranked list of your top four choices. You may only take one of each so you cannot for example take two Semester 2 modules.
Then during module pre-registration in the Student Portal (on Tuesday 30 April 2024), students do not select their specialist subject modules on the Student Portal. Instead, they need to select the correct substitute module(s) in the Student Portal to represent the special subject you have asked to be allocated to i.e., both HIS0001 and HIS0002 if they want two specialist subject modules, or HIS0001 OR HIS0002 if they want one specialist subject module:
| Module Code | Module Title | Credit Value | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| HIS0001 | Semester 1 substitute for stage 3 HIS capped special subject | 20 | 1 |
| HIS0002 | Semester 2 substitute for stage 3 HIS capped special subject | 20 | 2 |
Students who wish to undertake independent research in History may wish to choose one or more of the following modules:
| Module Code | Module Title | Credit Value | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| HIS3000 | Reading History (Not Capped) | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3020 | Writing History (Dissertation) (Not Capped) | 40 | 1&2 |
| HIS3036 | Public History in Practice (Not Capped) | 20 | 2 |
Students may select modules from the following (Note: all specialist HIS modules are capped at 40 and will be allocated via the preference form):
| Module Code | Module Title | Credit Value | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARA3013 | Early Medieval Britain | 20 | 2 |
| ARA3021 | Frontier Communities of Roman Britain | 20 | 2 |
| ARA3036 | Neolithic & Early Bronze Age Britain in its European Context | 20 | 1 |
| CAH3005 | City of Athens: Power, Society and Culture | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3204 | The British Revolutions, 1640-1660 | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3206 | The Irish Revolution, 1879-1923 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3212 | Reconstruction and the New South, 1865-1900 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3220 | British Foreign Policy since Suez | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3221 | Birth Control in the Nineteenth & Twentieth Centuries | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3232 | Civil Rights and Armalites; Northern Ireland since 1969 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3240 | Civil Rights in America, 1948 - 1975 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3326 | Women in Colonial South Asia: Tradition, Reform and Modernity | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3335 | Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1798 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3336 | Punishing the Criminal Dead: Crime, Culture and Corpses in Modern Britain | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3344 | The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1961 - 1990 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3346 | The Rising Generation: Youth, Age and Protest in Post-War Britain | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3348 | Haitian Revolution | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3349 | Healthy Spaces for Healthy Bodies: Medicine, Humans, Places | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3351 | Buddhism and Society in Medieval Japan | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3352 | The Renaissance World of Florence, 1450-1550: Machiavelli, Mayhen, and Strife | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3355 | The Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps - Origins, Experiences and Aftermaths | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3359 | Nineteenth Century Aotearoa New Zealand: Maori, Pakeha & Tauiwi | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3361 | Body and Emotions in Early Modern Europe 1450-1650 | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3362 | War and Remembering: Recalling War in Oral Histories, c.1950-2022 | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3365 | British Colonialism in Sudan: Violence, Gender and Race, 1899-1956 | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3366 | Fictional Histories: from edieval to modern | 20 | 1 |
| HIS3367 | Coronations and Ceremonial: Creating Soft Power in Tenth-Century Britain, Byzantium, and Armenia | 20 | 2 |
| HIS3368 | Exhausted! The problem of sleep (and not sleeping) from 1750 to the present day | 20 | 2 |
Get in touch
If you have any questions about choosing this subject as part of your Combined Honours degree, contact us and we'll be more than happy to help.
Subject adviser
Dr Scott Ashley - School of History, Classics and Archaeology
Dr Samiksha Sehrawat - School of History, Classics and Archaeology