Overview

The Department of History at Warwick University is one of the largest history departments in the UK, with a strong international reputation and high rankings in university guides and surveys. It was rated second-equal nationally in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and was rated Excellent in the most recent Teaching Quality Assessment. Warwick History attracts staff and students of high calibre from both the UK and overseas.
 

Students

Undergraduates: Warwick History has an undergraduate student population of over 600 students. It offers a range of 3-year undergraduate degrees: single honours History, and joint honours degrees with French, Italian, German, Politics, and Sociology. Study abroad opportunities are available to students on each of History's full-time degree programmes. Many single honours History students spend the autumn term of their final year studying with Warwick tutors in Venice; a number of single and joint honours students choose to extend their studies from a 3-year programme to a 4-year programme with an intercalated year at one of several North American and Latin American universities with which Warwick has exchange agreements. History also participates actively in Erasmus schemes, offering undergraduates the opportunity to study in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The Department's School of Comparative American Studies (CAS) offers a 4-year History, Literature and Cultures of the Americas degree programme which includes one year abroad studying in the Americas. Part-time students can hone their analytical skills and historical knowledge on the University's Historical Studies degree.

Postgraduates: Warwick History has a population of over a hundred MA and PhD students. The Department offers both a broad-based MA in History and several thematic MA degrees. These include MAs in Modern History, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Global History, History of Medicine, Comparative American Studies, History & Film, and Religious, Social & Cultural History 1500-1700. An MA by Research is also available. PhD students in History choose from approximately 40 doctoral supervisors and explore topics that range from colonial Latin American history to, for example, early modern English social history, the history of medicine in South Asia, eighteenth-century consumer society and 20th-century welfare systems. The diversity of research can be seen in the postgraduate students' e-portfolios. A lively research culture including seminar series, workshops and training sessions promotes postgraduate research activity.
 

Research

Staff Research Interests: Of the full-time permanent staff in the Department, roughly one-third research the Renaissance/early modern era and two-thirds are historians of the modern period. Geographically, research in History at Warwick covers African History, Comparative American History (the Caribbean, Latin America and North America), British History from the early modern period to the present, Continental European History from the Renaissance to the present, and Asian History from the Ming Dynasty to the present (with a particular emphasis on South Asia and China). Thematically, scholars in the Department are clustered in fields that include race, ethnicity and slavery; popular and political protest; the history of religion; gender and family history; eighteenth-century studies; the history of technology; cultures and practices of health; global history; visual and material culture; and the interface between history and literature.

Research Centres: Warwick History also includes three research centres. The Eighteenth Century Centre has fostered many research programmes relating to consumer culture and has collaborated with staff at institutions such as Waddesdon Manor, a major collection of eighteenth-century furnishings, ornaments and printed materials. The Global History and Culture Centre provides a focus for the interdisciplinary study of global history and culture at an international level through symposia, conferences, day schools and seminar series, honorary visiting fellowships, postgraduate exchanges and postdoctoral fellowships. The Department's Wellcome Trust funded Centre for the History of Medicine is currently engaged in its second 5-year Wellcome Trust Strategic Award, focused around an ambitious programme entitled 'Situating Medicine: New Directions in the History of Medicine'. The research centres attract (and welcome) both postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Current postdoctoral fellows are funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the Marie Curie fellowship scheme and the Wellcome Trust.

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