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About the History Department
Comparative - Interdisciplinary -
International - At the Cutting Edge
The Department of History at the University of Essex was
founded in 1972. Since then it has developed a strongly individual character.
We pride ourselves on being a Department that refuses intellectual
straitjackets. We enjoy the mix of areas and specialisms found along our
corridors. The pattern of appointments to our Department has deliberately
brought together a group of scholars with a wide range of approaches and
fields: Britain, Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia are all represented, as
are the relations between them. In the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise the
Department was awarded a grade five and the University overall was ranked as
one of the top ten universities in the country. The Department has always
prided itself on having a friendly atmosphere, with good staff-student
relationships.
We offer a wide variety of undergraduate degrees that cover the history of
Britain, Europe and the world from 1500 to the present day. In addition to our
BA in History, we offer some fifteen other BAs, including specialised ones in
modern history, contemporary history, American (US and Latin American)
history, British and European history. Our joint degrees include innovative
schemes such as modern history with international relations, history with film
studies, and history and criminology. We strive to teach in ways that reflect
the evolving nature of history as a discipline. In addition to major modules,
such as The Making of the Modern World, 1789-1989, we offer a very wide range
of optional modules, on subjects as varied as early-modern witchcraft, English
Satirical Print, c1730-1840, Black America, 1936-1990, Stalin's Russia, the
Third Reich. We encourage students to appreciate the complexity and diversity
of past events, situations and mentalities and in the course of their studies
to acquire key skills of research and analysis, oral and written
communication.
We have particular expertise in early-modern and modern British and European
history, especially social and cultural history; history of Essex and Suffolk
(from the Middle Ages to the present); gender history; history of
twentieth-century USA, Soviet Union, Latin America, Southern Africa, and
China; comparative history; international relations and oil diplomacy;
history of surveillance; history of medicine and ideas; the
relationship of film to history. Themes of particular interest in
research
include class formation, nationalism, cultural history, gender, wars and
revolutions. We have a lively postgraduate community, with many students from
overseas. We pride ourselves on research training and careful supervision. We
are recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as an outlet
for research training and funding.
What makes us distinctive as a history can be summed up under five headings:
comparative, interdisciplinary, international, and at the innovative.
The nineteen full-time members of the Department work very
largely on the post-medieval world, although some colleagues have research
interests extending back to the thirteenth century. We teach nothing earlier
than 1492, while we offer analyses of even the later twentieth and the present
centuries.
Comparative
Although most of us have published specialist works, which
deal with particular countries and localities, we do not believe in History in
'One Country'. Our concern in our teaching and research is with the larger
historical issues. Concern with these necessarily leads to a comparative
approach. Even where we study a particular phenomenon - whether racial
segregation in the Americas or gender in early modern Europe -we are conscious
that the best history is informed by knowledge of the phenomenon in other
periods and societies. The Department belongs to the Faculty of Humanities and
Comparative Studies, which was set up by the founders of the University of
Essex precisely to break with intellectual parochialism of all kinds. The
Department has never wavered from this commitment, to which our scholars
specialized in non-European history (for instance, the history of the United
States, China, Latin America, or Africa) make a particularly decisive
contribution.
Interdisciplinary
History at Essex has strong links with the Departments of
Sociology,
Government,
Literature, Film and Theatre
Studies and Art History, and also with the
interdisciplinary Centres of United States Studies,
Latin American Studies,
and European Studies. The Department is also
interested in theory, but is not theoretical in any dogmatic sense. Students
interested in using concepts - whether derived from sociology, psychoanalysis,
political economy or philosophy - in their research will find a congenial and
testing environment here.
International
As befits a Department committed to comparative history and
global perspectives, the very nature of our teaching and research team is
international. Our corridors are cosmopolitan. Several members of staff are
from overseas, and they bring with them contacts and concerns that complement
those of their colleagues from Britain. International students - who
constitute a high proportion of our postgraduate body - will find that a
number of their teachers were themselves once overseas students, and that they
are aware of both the difficulties and excitement of study away from one's
home country. There are also opportunities for British students at Essex to
study abroad.
At the Cutting Edge
By describing ourselves as 'at the cutting edge', we do not
mean merely that a number of our scholars are leaders in their fields, nor
that history at Essex incorporates dimensions not found elsewhere. We mean
that the nature of much of the work undertaken in the Department is breaking
new ground.
Further Information
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