Subject overview
History at Sussex is ranked in the top 100 in the world in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2013, in the top 20 in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2013 and in the top 25 in the UK in The Complete University Guide 2014.
Rated 15th in the UK for research in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). 90 per cent of our research was rated as internationally recognised or higher, with 65 per cent rated as internationally excellent or higher, and a quarter rated as world leading.
History is a vibrant, ambitious and highly research-active department with major strengths in modern and contemporary history. Cultural, intellectual, social and economic history are particularly well represented.
History is home to a number of innovative research centres, including the Centre for German-Jewish Studies, the Centre for Intellectual History, the Centre for War and Society, and the Marcus Cunliffe Centre for the Study of the American South. Sussex historians also play leading roles in cross-departmental the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies and the Centre for Early Modern Studies.
Sussex students have access to an impressive range of archives including the internationally renowned Mass Observation Archive, which is housed in the University Library.
Academic activities
The History Department runs a weekly work-in-progress seminar throughout the academic year, to which visiting historians, research students and faculty contribute. All postgraduate students are expected to attend as an instrinsic part of their studies. Sussex history research students have in recent years organised a highly successful annual postgraduate conference, Fresh Perspectives. Our postgraduate students also run the well-established University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History, an innovative online journal of creative and interdisciplinary historical research by members of the postgraduate and early postdoctoral community.
History at Sussex has a thriving and animated research culture, with regular seminars, workshops and conferences on interdisciplinary research, and specific modules on research methods and skills.
Postgraduate students play an active role in the vibrant research centres that exist within the History Department and throughout the University. These Centres organise seminars and conferences among other activities and include:
Programmes
- PhD in History
- PhD in Intellectual History
- MPhil in History
- MPhil in Intellectual History
We invite research proposals in all aspects of contemporary history, in modern European history, in British history since 1700, in American history, in intellectual history, in rural history and in the history of science. The History Department lays particular emphasis on social, cultural, political and economic history of the 19th and 20th centuries; intellectual and religious history; and gender and women’s history. For individual areas of research and potential supervisors, refer to Faculty research interests, above right.
All research is individually supervised by members of the History Department, and a weekly work-in-progress seminar gives a platform for Sussex historians, visiting speakers and research students to present their ideas and scholarship.
Intensive language courses in the major European languages are available. Refer to the Sussex Centre for Language Studies for more information.
Library and archives
The University Library is rich in contemporary publications, periodicals and newspapers and has a large documentary section. The Library also subscribes to a range of electronic resources, including Early English Books Online (EEBO), which provides access to over 100,000 titles published between 1475 and 1700, in facsimile form.
Its Special Collections contain the internationally renowned Mass Observation Archive (1937-present), on which numerous theses and books, written at Sussex and elsewhere, have been based, and which has its own publications list; the important Paris Commune collection of books, posters, illustrations and newspapers of 1871; literary and political manuscripts of the 20th century including the Rudyard Kipling papers, Bloomsbury Group papers, the New Statesman archive and Kingsley Martin papers; and the History and Popularisation of Science collection including the JG Crowther papers.
Archival sources for local history are stored at the East Sussex County Record Office in nearby Lewes and at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester. There is the Design Archive at the neighbouring University of Brighton, and most research students regularly use the British Library and the Public Record Office in London.
Coursework
Most research students will have successfully completed an MA with research training skills and will therefore not be required to take any compulsory coursework. Where it is thought advisable, first-year research students may otherwise be required to participate in the Historical Skills and Methods module, or the Historiography and Intellectual History module during the autumn term.
Recent thesis titles
The formation of the public image of the Balkans in Britain between 1912 and 1945
The political thought of the Cordeliers Club
Young women, employment and the family in interwar England
Entry requirements
- MPhil in History
-
UK entrance requirements
A Masters degree in history or a related discipline, or an equivalent qualification.
Overseas entrance requirements
Please refer to Overseas qualifications.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5, with not less than 6.5 in Writing and 6.0 in the other sections. Internet TOEFL with 88 overall, with at least 20 in Listening, 20 in Reading, 22 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
- MPhil in Intellectual History
-
UK entrance requirements
A Masters degree in history or a related discipline, or an equivalent qualification.
Overseas entrance requirements
Please refer to Overseas qualifications.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5, with not less than 6.5 in Writing and 6.0 in the other sections. Internet TOEFL with 88 overall, with at least 20 in Listening, 20 in Reading, 22 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
- PhD in History
-
UK entrance requirements
A Masters degree in history or a related discipline, or an equivalent qualification.
Overseas entrance requirements
Please refer to Overseas qualifications.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5, with not less than 6.5 in Writing and 6.0 in the other sections. Internet TOEFL with 88 overall, with at least 20 in Listening, 20 in Reading, 22 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
- PhD in Intellectual History
-
UK entrance requirements
A Masters degree in history or a related discipline, or an equivalent qualification.
Overseas entrance requirements
Please refer to Overseas qualifications.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5, with not less than 6.5 in Writing and 6.0 in the other sections. Internet TOEFL with 88 overall, with at least 20 in Listening, 20 in Reading, 22 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
Visas and immigration
Find out more about Visas and immigration.
For more information about the admissions process at Sussex
For pre-application enquiries:
Student Recruitment Services
T +44 (0)1273 876787
E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk
For post-application enquiries:
Postgraduate Admissions,
University of Sussex,
Sussex House, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9RH, UK
T +44 (0)1273 877773
F +44 (0)1273 678545
E pg.applicants@sussex.ac.uk
Related subjects
Fees and funding
Fees
- MPhil in History
-
Home UK/EU students: £3,9001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,9002
Overseas students: £13,00031 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
- PhD in History
-
Home UK/EU students: £3,9001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,9002
Overseas students: £13,00031 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
- MPhil in Intellectual History
-
Home UK/EU students: £3,9001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,9002
Overseas students: £13,00031 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
- PhD in Intellectual History
-
Home UK/EU students: £3,9001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,9002
Overseas students: £13,00031 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
To find out about your fee status, living expenses and other costs, visit further financial information.
Funding
The funding sources listed below are for the subject area you are viewing and may not apply to all degrees listed within it. Please check the description of the individual funding source to make sure it is relevant to your chosen degree.
To find out more about funding and part-time work, visit further financial information.
Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust for Postgraduate Study (2013)
Region: UK
Level: PG (taught), PG (research)
Application deadline: 1 October 2013
The Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust are offering bursaries to Postgraduate students following any postgraduate degree courses in any subject.
Faculty interests
Research interests are briefly described below. For more detailed information, visit the Department of History.
Dr Hester Barron 20th-century British social history, labour history, the history of the working classes.
Professor Stephen Burman International political economy, class and race in the US.
Professor Robert Cook 19th- and 20th-century political and social history, the American Civil War.
Professor Matthew Cragoe Victorian Britain, social history of religion, cultural history of politics.
Dr Vinita Damodaran Modern India, popular protest and nationalism during the final stages of British imperial rule.
Professor Carol Dyhouse 19th- and 20th-century British social history, feminism, gender.
Dr Jim Endersby The history of science, the impact of empire on 19th-century Britain and the reception of Darwinism.
Dr Richard Follett 19th-century US history, slavery, emancipation in the Americas: the American South.
Professor Ian Gazeley British history in the 20th century, living standards and poverty, and employment and unemployment.
Professor Robert Iliffe The history of science and the Newton Project.
Dr Claire Langhamer 20th-century British history, specialising in gender, life histories and mass observation.
Professor James Livesey The cultural history of France and the British Isles, especially Ireland, 1640-1900.
Dr Gideon Reuveni Cultural history of the European economy. Director of the Centre for German-Jewish Studies.
Dr Lucy Robinson Contemporary British history: the British left, counter-culture and youth culture.
Dr Jarod Roll Labour and working class, religion in America.
David Rudling Multi-period landscape archaeology, late Iron-Age and Roman Britain.
Dr Darrow Schecter Gramsci, industrial democracy, theories of socialism, civil society.
Professor Dorothy Sheridan British 20th-century social history, women’s history. Archivist of the Mass Observation Archive.
Dr Claudia Siebrecht Cultural history of war and violence in 20th-century Germany and Europe.
Dr Chris Warne Modern French history, withparticular interests in youth and its representation, and the cultures of everyday life.
Professor Clive Webb Race and ethnic relations in the 19th and 20th centuries, civil rights movement.
Professor Richard Whatmore 18th- and 19th-century French and British intellectual history, British radicalism in the 1790s.
Careers and perspectives
Our graduates hold posts such as archivist, historical researcher, and teacher (schools, tertiary colleges, universities, and teaching English as a foreign language). Some have gone on to careers in museum work, business, government, journalism, media (film and radio), publishing, and social services.
For more information, visit Careers and alumni.
School and contacts
School of History, Art History and Philosophy
The School of History, Art History and Philosophy brings together staff and students from some of the University's most vibrant and successful departments, each of which is a locus of world-leading research and outstanding teaching. Our outlook places a premium on intellectual flexibility and the power of the imagination.
School of History, Art History and Philosophy,
PG Admissions,
University of Sussex, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9QN, UK
T +44 (0)1273 678001
E hahp@sussex.ac.uk
Department of History
Discover Postgraduate Study information sessions
You’re welcome to attend one of our Discover Postgraduate Study information sessions. These are held in the spring and summer terms and enable you to find out more about postgraduate study and the opportunities Sussex has to offer.
Visit Discover Postgraduate study to book your place.
Other ways to visit Sussex
We run weekly guided campus tours every Wednesday afternoon, year round. Book a place online at Visit us and Open Days.
You are also welcome to visit the University independently without any pre-arrangement.