History Durham University

Overview

Course Learning and Teaching

As a student on the History Ba course offered by Durham University, you will receive an average of 6.5 hours of timetabled contact per week over the course of the programme. This will include a combination of lectures, seminars, and tutorials. The balance between these activities will change over the course of the programme as you develop your knowledge and abilities as an independent learner.

The first year of the History degree offers you the opportunity to study a range of periods and approaches to history. Many of the modules cover quite large topics or long periods; these are intended to introduce you to subjects which may be unfamiliar and which pose new questions and new problems, showing you how wide the study of history really is.

In the second year, you will study five modules. One of these, ‘Conversations with History’, is a double-module which is taught through student-led seminars. It develops your understanding of issues of historiography, provides an introduction to the writing of more extended historical argument, and prepares you for the final year Dissertation. This is an important feature of our course, and so all Single Honours students will take it. It is divided into different strands covering different topics from which you will make your choice.

The third year allows you to specialise, with a triple-module Special Subject, taught entirely through seminars, which involves close study of primary sources. For this, you will work in a small group with a specialist in the field – with a three-hour seminar every week. In the final year, you will also undertake supervised independent research leading to the writing of a double-module Dissertation. Given this emphasis on focused study and independence, there is no requirement for you to study a range of periods in this year.