Subject overview

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 successful postgraduate conferences. 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: 

• the Centre for German-Jewish Studies 

• the Centre for Intellectual History

• the Centre for the History of War and Society

• the Centre for World Environmental History 

• the Marcus Cunliffe Centre for the Study of the American South. 

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 and the environment. 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.

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. For more information, visit the Sussex Centre for Language Studies.

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; political manuscripts of the 20th century including the Harvey Matusow archive, the New Statesman archive and Kingsley Martin papers; the May 1968 Collection; and the History and Popularisation of Science collection including the JG Crowther papers. For full details, visit Special Collections.

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

Neighbourhood, family and home: the working-class experience in mid-20th-century Britain 

The American prosecution’s use of film at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal 

The political thought of the Cordeliers Club 

Entry requirements

MPhil in History

UK entrance requirements

A Masters degree in history or a related discipline, or an equivalent qualification.

Overseas entrance requirements

If you are an international student and wish to find out if you have the necessary qualifications for this degree, 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

If you are an international student and wish to find out if you have the necessary qualifications for this degree, 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

If you are an international student and wish to find out if you have the necessary qualifications for this degree, 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

If you are an international student and wish to find out if you have the necessary qualifications for this degree, 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.

Related subjects

• Art history
• Philosophy

Fees and funding

Fees

MPhil in History

Home UK/EU students: £3,900¹
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,900²
Overseas students: £13,000³

¹ 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: £13,000³

¹ 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: £13,000³

¹ 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: £13,000³

¹ 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.

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.

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. 

Dr Jim Endersby The history of science, the impact of empire on 19th-century Britain and the reception of Darwinism. 

Professor Martin Evans French empire and North Africa, decolonisation and post-colonialism, oral history. 

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 Hilary Kalmbach Modern Islam, especially Islamic authority, leadership, knowledge and education; reform in the Middle East. 

Dr Claire Langhamer 20th-century British history, specialising in gender, life histories and mass observation. 

Dr Maurizio Marinelli Modern China, urban history. 

Dr Iain McDaniel Intellectual history. 

Dr Jacob Norris The Middle East in global perspective, Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

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 Darrow Schecter Gramsci, industrial democracy, theories of socialism, civil society. 

Dr Eric Schneider Economic history, history of health and living standards, demographic history, the Great Divergence. 

Dr Claudia Siebrecht Cultural history of war and violence in 20th-century Germany and Europe. 

Dr Chris Warne Modern French history, with particular interests in youth and its representation, and the cultures of everyday life. 

Professor Clive Webb Race and ethnic relations in the US and the UK. 

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. 

School and contacts