BA (Hons) History/Philosophy

Year 1

Your first year develops your basic knowledge of argument, reason and ethics. You'll also dive into popular and important periods throughout history.

Core modules

You will take core modules which may include:

• Evidence and Methods 

• Group Research Project 

• Knowledge and Beliefs in World History 

• Early Modern Philosophy 

• Beginning Philosophy 

• Ancient Philosophy 

• Reason and Argument 

• Ethics 

Year 2

You'll spend your second year exploring history through the context of the past and present

Core module

• Disciplines of History 1 

Option modules

You will choose from a selection of Histories and Contexts option modules, examples of which may include:

• Ancien Régime France, 1500-1787

• Britain in the Long Twentieth Century

• Ending European Empires: Decolonization after 1945 in Comparative Perspective

• From Grave Robbers to Gene Therapy: The Rise of Modern Medicine

• Histories in Public: Understandings of the Past in Today's Society

• Kingship, Rule and Mythmaking: England 1065-1307

• Narrators and Historical Memory in the Middle Ages

• Righteous Might: American Politics and Society since 1877

• The Tudor Regime: Power, Propaganda and Faith, 1485-1603

You will choose from a selection of Explorations option modules, examples of which may include:

• An Inconvenient Truth: Climate and Capitalism in the Modern World

• Black Radicalism in the Americas

• Britain and the World Since 1945

• British Police and the Democratic Idea since 1829

• Catherine the Great 1763 – 1796

• From the Global Shadows: Africa and the World since the 1950s

• Knowledge and Empire, c.1760-1965

• Law and Society in Later Medieval England (c.1300-1500)

• Revolutions, Scandals and Reforms: British Political Culture, 1688-1832

• The British Atlantic World, 1576-1692: From Roanoke Colony to the Salem Witch Trials

• The Color Line: Race and Empire in British, French and North American Worlds, c.1860-1945

• The Good World: Visions of Rule and Power in Italy, 1200-1400

• The Long Black Freedom Struggle in the U.S. since 1865

• The Making of England, c.850-1066

• The Pursuit of Happiness: The Politics of Leisure and Pastime in Twentieth-Century America

• Uniting the Kingdom: Britishness and the Four Nations, 1707-1815

• Using and Abusing the Past in Britain, 1835-2018

• What News?' People and Politics in Early Modern Britain

• Wild Things: A Cultural History of Animals, 1700-1900

You will also choose from a range of Philosophy modules which look in depth at some key issues in philosophy:

• Lived Experiences: Introduction to Phenomenology

• Feminist Philosophy

• Politics and Freedom: Anarchism and Conservatism

• Aesthetics

• Religious Ethics

• Ethical Theory

• Applied Ethics

• Hume’s Empiricism

• Nietzsche and Existentialism

Year 3

In your final year of the History and Philosophy degree, you'll have the option of writing a dissertation based on a historical period, or taking multiple in-depth course based on the philosophy of history. History and Philosophy students take one Special Subject, Philosophy of History and either a History Dissertation and two Philosophy option modules OR four Philosophy option modules.

• Philosophy of History 

• Dissertation 

You will choose from a selection of History Special Subject option modules, examples of which may include:

• Fantasy and Friction: US-Middle East Relations from 1945

• Francis Bacon: Myth, Magic and Morals

• From Colonial to Post-Colonial States? The Twentieth Century Caribbean

• Improvement, Modernization or Violence? 'Development' in Historical Perspective

• Inquisitors and Heretics in the High Middle Ages

• Ireland in the Age of Revolution

• Joan of Arc

• John Stuart Mill and Victorian Britain

• Ploughing the Sea? The Spanish American Wars of Independence, 1750-1830

• Possession: Objects and Ownership in Early Modern England, c.1650-c.1750

• Reading and Writing in Late-Medieval England

• Rebellion and Revolution: The British Civil Wars, 1637-51

• Revolution in the Streets: Faith, Poverty, and Religious Ferment, c.1200

• Second-Class Citizens: Migration in Modern Europe

• The French Wars of Religion, 1559-94

• The Ghosts of Gandhi: India and Africa since the Late Nineteenth Century

• The Russian Revolution, 1917-21

• Thomas More: Learning, Politics and Religion in England, 1500-35

You will choose from a selection of Philosophy option modules, examples of which may include: 

• Philosophy of Christianity

• Idolatry and Tradition: The Philosophy of Maimonides and Crescas 

• Happiness, Utility and Wellbeing

• Mind and Morality

• Cognitive Anomalies, Decision-Making and Democracy

• Philosophy of Grief

• Property and Self-ownership

• Philosophy of Recognition

• Consciousness

• From Marx to Critical Theory 

• Philosophy of Law 

• Philosophy of Psychology 

• German Idealism: Moral, Legal and Political Philosophy 

• Contemporary Issues in Bioethics 

• Foundations of Maths 

• Philosophy of Physics  

• Short dissertation 

• Philosophy of Literature

• Buddhism as Philosophy