Bath Spa University

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History

History never looks like history when you are living through it.

John W. Gardner.

Until the lion has a historian of his own, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

African Proverb.

History is as much an art as a science.

Ernest Renan.

Introduction

One of the main reasons for studying history is to make you aware of the wider world. Our view of what happened in the past fundamentally shapes the way we view the present – and the future – and a sound understanding of history enables us to be engaged critically with the issues, debates and problems facing us in the twenty-first century.

Our aim in the History programme at Bath Spa University is to provide you with a challenging and thought-provoking experience in the study of the subject, giving you the opportunity to explore a diverse range of historical evidence and topics, and covering a wide range of periods from the medieval through to the modern world. Our programme enables you to select and explore those aspects of history that most interest you, while also ensuring that you acquire a fundamental understanding of history as a scholarly discipline.

Alongside these aims, the History programme is also designed to help you develop a wide variety of life and work skills that will be crucial to you beyond your time at University. Success in your future choice of career will be based not just on having relevant skills, knowledge and experience, but also on your ability to articulate these to prospective employers and to ensure that you secure employment.

The History programme naturally reflects the rich diversity of the subject, with any number of ‘histories’, and at Bath Spa you will engage in history across the range of ways of ‘doing’ history: social history, political history, religious history, gender history, economic history, oral history, literary history, etc. You will be exposed to the huge variety of sources that make up historical evidence, and be taught to question the reliability of these sources.

There is no one definitive view of the past and it is subject to continual re-interpretation; history is indeed an argument without end.

Course Structure and Content

History at Bath Spa offers you the chance to take modules that cover a variety of time periods, a range of geographical areas, consider different approaches to historical enquiry and introduce you to a host of different historical events and characters.

Teaching is by lectures, seminars, workshops, field trips and tutorials in which you are encouraged to develop your knowledge and skills working individually, in small groups or in whole class groups as fits the topics being studied and needs of the students involved.

In the second and third year you will choose from a range of more specific modules that build on the broader introductory modules offered in year one. Local and regional field trips, overseas study trips and exchange programmes are also available in relation to a number of History modules.

Studying History at Bath Spa will enable you to use your analytical skills, be able to engage in lateral thinking about the past, develop your abilities to be critical and be able to discriminate in your reading; and, above all maintain your curiosity about the past.

During your time at Bath Spa University you will, of course, study the subject of History, but by doing so you will also develop your skills for life and work:

• You will develop skills in team work and leadership, personal management and time management;
• You will learn how to effectively communicate your ideas to others verbally and in writing;
• You will learn how to engage critically with and debate relevant issues;
• You will develop your own style of independent learning;
• You will develop the ability to research at an advanced level;
• And you will further develop your skills in literacy, numeracy and IT.

The skills you acquire studying History will help you gain initial employment after you graduate, maintain this employment and move around the labour market as suits your own career and life plans with confidence and practical experience.

Modules

Year One

• Changing Histories (Core module);
• Medieval and Renaissance Worlds (Option module);
• Age of the People: Europe c.1870-1990 (Option module);
• Age of Discovery to the Gilded Age: America c.1492-1914 (Option module);
• Unruly Lot: women and social change in Europe and North America c.1550-1914 (Option module);
• Conquest, Famine and Cultural Revival in Ireland (Option module);
• The Tudors & Stuarts: A Social History (Option module);
• Age of Empires (c.1492-1857) (Option module);
• History of Asia (Option module);
• Heritage and Applied History*;
• The Business of Heritage*.

Year Two

• Making History (Core module);
• History at Work I (Option module – project-based/work-based learning module);
• Nineteenth Century Britain and Ireland: Politics and Society (Option module);
• The Political World of Eighteenth Century Britain (Option module);
• Hecate’s Daughters: early modern witchcraft (Option module);
• Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe 1789-1820 (Option module);
• Peace, Prosperity, Depression and War: Britain and the USA between the wars (Option module);
• The British Empire: from the Opium Wars to decolonisation c.1840-1970 (Option module);
• The Third Reich (Option module);
• The Great War: conflict and society (Option module);
• Heritage in Context*.

Year Three

• History Dissertation (Core module);
• History at Work II/III (Option module – project-based/work-based learning modules);
• The English Republic (Option module);
• From Affluent Society to Permissive Society: the era of the 60s (Option module);
• George Orwell: politics and literature (Option module);
• More than a Game: sport and the modern world c.1801-1992 (Option module);
• Leisure, Pleasure and Consumption: rise of a consume society c.1750-1950 (Option module);
• Secret Service: British intelligence and espionage (Option module);
• Rex Pacificus c.1603-1625 (Option module);
• The Contemporary Muslim World (Option module);
• Gender and Society in Eighteenth Century England (Option module);
• Medieval Women (Option module);
• Heritage and the Wider World*.

*Modules available as second subject or options from part the Heritage BA/BSc Combined Award

Assessment Methods

In History at Bath Spa we use rich variety of different forms of assessment, linked to the learning outcomes for each module, and for the course overall. History assessments are designed to measure and develop your skills and progress in the following areas:

• Knowledge and understanding skills;
• Intellectual skills;
• Skills in numeracy, literacy and IT;
• Personal and interactive skills;
• Employability and transferable skills.

The types of assessment used on the course include:

• Project work;
• Examinations;
• Essays;
• Research papers;
• Timed analysis of documents;
• Seminar presentations;
• Special assignments.

Throughout your degree, you progress is carefully monitored by your tutors through written feedback on your assignments and through one-to-one tutorials where we explain the strengths of your work and provide clear guidance about how to make improvements. Our discussions with you both in class and in tutorials help us work with you to make sure you meet your own individual learning challenges, set goals for improvement, and recognise and celebrate your achievements.

Career Opportunities

Career opportunities for History graduates are rich and varied. In addition to senior people working an a whole range of fields (the Civil Service, law, trade unions, security services, business and finance, museums and libraries, art and culture, etc.) lists of ‘Famous History Graduates’ include:

• Novelist Salman Rushdie, the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G), ex-England footballer Steve Coppell; and founder of the Body Shop the late Anita Roddick;
• BBC radio presenters Nicky Campbell, Simon Mayo and Jonathan Ross;
• Journalists Jeremy Bowen, Louis Theroux and Melvyn Bragg;
• Government advisors Dame Ruth Runciman (Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs), Iona Hauser (Senior Arms Control Analyst at the Institute for Public Policy Research), Jenny Watson (Deputy Chair for the Equal Opportunities Commission);
• ... and politicians Douglas Hurd, Sir Chris Patten, Kenneth Baker, Alan Milburn, John Prescott, David Blunkett, Gordon Brown.

When asked ‘what is the use of history in the world of work?’, Professor David Nicholls (Manchester Metropolitan University) has answered that:

A history degree undoubtedly provides an opening to a wide range of careers. Some will come as no surprise: teaching, clerical and administrative, PR, retail and catering, politics, and library, museum and information services. Others, notably business, may well raise an eyebrow. Perhaps the most surprising thing, though, is the extent to which history graduates have risen to the very top of a diverse range of professions and to key positions in civil society. A truly remarkable number have gone on to become the movers-and-shakers of modern-day Britain. Many top jobs are within the grasp of historians.

Projects, Work Experience and Placement Opportunities

Today, probably more than in previous decades, success hinges on effective application of knowledge to solve problems and create new ideas and information. Working collaboratively during project work prepares you for modern citizenship and work, as groups, not individuals, solve most complex communal, social, and workplace problems. Allowing you to work together to achieve a goal helps you recognise the value of the contributions and perspectives of all team members and helps to prepare you for life beyond University.

For these reasons, throughout the History programme, all students undertake project work and teamwork of one kind or another (e.g. individual research projects, group presentations based on collaborative research projects, group outreach projects, whole class exhibition projects etc.).

External project work is also available in the ‘History at Work’ series of modules available in years two and three, which provides you individually or in a group with the opportunity to experience working in a cultural, creative or heritage-related organisation and to develop valuable skills that can be utilised in other contexts. The main focus is for you (either individually or collaboratively) to negotiate and conduct a history or heritage-related work-based project with an employer or other outside body of your choosing. This might be a museum or gallery, a cinema or theatre, a radio or TV station, or an educational establishment, for example.

These opportunities provide you with invaluable hands-on work experience throughout your degree, and for many students these experiences lead to more formal placements vital to securing employment after graduation.

Typical Offers

280 UCAS Tariff points.