University College London (UCL)

Public History MA

Teaching and learning

Through your optional and elective modules, the MA programme will offer you the opportunity to explore a range of periods, locations, and practices through which public history is made. The compulsory module Critical Public History is broken into two parts. In Term 1, you can develop an understanding of conceptual and theoretical approaches to the study of public history to be applied to your project-based work, which you will begin to plan and prepare for in this term. In Term 2, you can develop your practical skills as a public historian by designing and producing a small public history output, working with a small team in a collaborative environment while mentored by a professional public history practitioner. In Term 3, you can combine your practical and critical knowledge in your capstone Public History Research Project.

You will learn through a mixture of seminars (including student-moderated guest speaker talks with Q&As), film screenings, field trips, studio-based learning at UCL East’s new Urban Room and Memory Workshop, and undertaking private reading and research. Most of your education will be in small groups. A module typically involves about two hours of contact time and ten hours of individual study per week. Seminar groups generally have a maximum of twelve students. Much of your teaching is likely to be research-led. In addition to lectures, seminars, and studio work, you will also receive one-to-one tutorial-style teaching and mentoring by public history practitioners.

A core part of the assessment will be through coursework essays. However, students will also be assessed through video and audio productions, oral presentations, web resources, project reports and proposals, treatments, and scripts.

For full-time students, typical contact hours are around 7–8 hours of lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials per teaching week. Outside of lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials, full-time students typically study the equivalent of a full-time job, using their remaining time for self-directed study and completing coursework assignments (20–25 hours).

In Term 3 and the summer period, students will be completing their own dissertation research, keeping regular contact with their dissertation supervisors.

Modules

Full-time

The programme is designed so you can develop your trajectory within the field of public history, developing your practical skills in specific modes of public history practice as you extend and apply your critical understanding of them.

In Term 1, you will gain a solid foundation in the concepts and debates relevant to public history, beginning to explore the distinct shapes it has taken across time and geography and the distinct publics that consume and create historical understanding. You will learn about the commercial, community and political applications of historical knowledge while reflecting on how taking history public impacts academic research and historiography.

In Term 2, you will deepen your public history-making skills by researching and co-creating an assessed small public history project mentored by experienced practitioners within UCL and beyond.

In both terms, you will be able to take recommended module options which will deepen:

• your understanding of the diverse contexts in which public history is made, consumed, and applied;
• the history from which you intend to make public history outputs; and
• your practical knowledge of the various genres and spaces through which you intend to make public history.

The culmination of your studies will be a capstone public history research project, which you will focus on in Term 3. This project will allow you to combine your practical, historical or critical knowledge of public history. It is assessed by both a written piece of work and a public history output. However, before starting your studies, you will decide which element to focus on.

The Public History Research Project: Examining Public History involves working on a 10,000-word research dissertation or public history report (70%) and accompanying public history output (30%, equivalent to work for a 5,000-word essay). The latter will comprise either an audio or video essay or audio tour, OR a project proposal pitching a history radio programme, documentary television programme or immersive VR experience OR a history web resource (such as a blog, an online teaching resource or a small online exhibition).

Alternatively, if you decide on the Public History Research Project: Creating Public History, you will focus on a public history output (70%, equivalent in work to a 10,000-word dissertation), accompanied by a 5,000-word reflective essay (30%). Subject to availability, your public history output will comprise a podcast or documentary film, OR an audio tour, OR a script for an episodic history documentary or dramatised history documentary radio or television programme, OR a history web resource (such as a curated oral history collection, a teaching resource for schools, or a virtual exhibition).

Part-time

The programme is designed so you can develop your trajectory within the field of public history, developing your practical skills in specific modes of public history practice as you extend and apply your critical understanding of them.

In Year 1, you will gain a solid foundation in the concepts and debates relevant to public history, beginning to explore the distinct shapes it has taken across time and geography and the distinct publics that consume and create historical understanding. You will learn about the commercial, community and political applications of historical knowledge while reflecting on how taking history public impacts academic research and historiography.

You will also deepen your public history-making skills by researching and co-creating an assessed small public history project mentored by experienced practitioners within UCL and beyond.

In Year 2, you will focus on a capstone public history research project, which will allow you to combine your practical, historical and critical knowledge of public history. This project is assessed by both a written piece of work and a public history output. However, before your first year of study ends, you will choose which element you wish to focus on more by selecting one of two options.

The Public History Research Project: Examining Public History involves working on a 10,000-word research dissertation or public history report (70%) and accompanying public history output (30%, equivalent to work for a 5,000-word essay). The latter will comprise either an audio or video essay or audio tour, OR a project proposal pitching a history radio programme, documentary television programme or immersive VR experience OR a history web resource (such as a blog, an online teaching resource or a small online exhibition).

Alternatively, the Public History Research Project: Creating Public History allows you to focus on a public history output (70%, equivalent in work to a 10,000-word dissertation), accompanied by a 5,000-word reflective essay (30%). Subject to availability, your public history output will comprise either a podcast or documentary film OR an audio tour OR a script for an episodic history documentary or dramatised history documentary radio or television programme OR a history web resource.

In both years, you will be able to take recommended module options which will deepen:

• your understanding of the diverse contexts in which public history is made, consumed, and applied;
• the history from which you intend to make public history outputs; and,
• your practical knowledge of the various genres and spaces through which you intend to make public history.

Compulsory modules

• Public History Research Project: Examining Public History
• Public History Research Project: Creating Public History
• Critical Public History

Optional modules

• Research and Writing Skills for the MA in History
• Rethinking History on Screen
• Migrant City: Migration, Public History and London
• New Public Histories in Conflict-Affected Contexts
• Public History, Institutions and Communities
• Political Thought in Renaissance Europe
• Challenging the Gender Binary in Modern Britain
• Topics in Economic History

Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment, and module content and availability are subject to change.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits. Upon successful completion of 180 credits, you will be awarded an MA in Public History. Upon successful completion of 60 credits, you will be awarded a PG Cert in Public History.

What this course will give you

UCL History enjoys an outstanding international reputation for its research and teaching. The department is committed to the intellectual development of all our students; if you come to UCL, you will receive individual supervision from leading historians.

Public History MA students will be primarily based at UCL East, our new state-of-the-art Stratford, East London campus. The new campus will provide access to many collaborative and creative spaces:

• The Memory Workshop
• Centre for public-facing history teaching and research
• The Urban Room
• The Culture Lab
• Conservation and media studios, and other exhibition and curating spaces.

Students also have access to the Bloomsbury campus, just minutes away from the exceptional resources:

• The British Library
• The British Museum
• The Warburg
• The Institute of Historical Research
• The Petrie Museum at UCL.

There is a range of focus from the local to the global; core courses and optional modules range from real embeddedness in East London to how public history changes in Asian and Middle Eastern global contexts.

Students will benefit from UCL’s rich experience working with national heritage institutions, museums and media outlets, as well as local communities in London, and from the university’s own role as a public history provider (through its three on-campus museums and special collections). They will work with internationally-recognised practitioner-researchers in oral history, documentary film and radio, exhibition curation, digital history, historical dramatization and heritage-making.

Students will also have opportunities to study with public history professionals from beyond UCL and thus gain exposure to a range of career pathways.

The foundation of your career

Through this degree, students develop an enviable range of skills. Debates, small-group seminars and tutorials help students acquire strong presentation and negotiation skills for their future careers. Employers from various industries also highly value the analytical and research skills gained. Many additional opportunities are available within the department and the wider UCL community for students to enhance their employability by engaging in career talks and networking events. Networks made at UCL East will also expand students' career prospects.

Over the past years, Department of History graduates have gone on to careers in education, publishing and journalism, policy and government and health and social care (Graduate Outcomes survey 2017–2022).

Employability

The programme is designed to teach many of the transferable skills that history MA programmes offer and which provide a strong foundation for those hoping to undertake PhD research and an academic career. On top of this, the programme provides the transferable skills necessary to pursue a career in media and arts, heritage, education, civil service, and business.

Debate, small group seminars and tutorials provide you with solid presentation and negotiation skills for your future career. Project-based work will help you learn to collaborate and manage your time and workload effectively. Employers highly prize these skills across a range of sectors. The media and digital skills training you acquire will develop your ability to communicate effectively across various genres and audiences. By learning with industry professionals and specialist practitioners, you will gain knowledge of multiple career pathways and possibilities for further networking.

Many additional activities are available, both within the department and the wider UCL community, to help you focus on employability skills whilst you are here, for example, departmental careers talks and networking opportunities with UCL History alumni.

Networking

Students on the MA in Public History undertake field trips to museums, archives and other public history organisations in London as part of their core and optional modules, where they will meet with public history experts in various roles. This has included the Imperial War Museum, the Migration Museum and the Living Refugee Archive in past years.

Students have also been involved in local public history projects as volunteers, connecting with practitioners in East London. Students are encouraged to attend relevant talks and seminars within UCL and at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR). The programme lead regularly communicates relevant events, conferences and workshops.