Program Overview

MA History

Overview

Our MA in History will take your skills and experience to the next level. With legacies of the past shaping the structure of institutions, economies, identities, relationships, social movements, and the problems of the present and the future, advanced training in the topics, themes, skills, and approaches to understand and interpret this history is more valuable than ever. Over the course of our programme, you will:

• Undertake a unique blend of taught modules focusing on the 18th to the 21st centuries under the guidance of expert and supportive staff,
• Forge relationships with our network of heritage partners – including museums, archives, and charities – gaining valuable first-hand experience working on public-history projects,
• Pursue your own research interests, exploring a wide range of evidence to construct interpretations of human behaviour and thinking in the past, and learning to communicate them to a variety of audiences,
• Bring all your knowledge, connections, and experience together in an independent dissertation project under the supervision and mentorship of one of our academic experts.
• Join a community of scholars working in one of England’s richest historical landscapes, including having unrivalled access to The Hold, the flagship branch of the Suffolk Archives located right on our campus which puts over 900 years of historical documents at your fingertips.

Course Modules

Our MA in History ranges widely between 1750 and the present day, allowing students to choose an array of modules that explore topics and issues from local, regional, and global perspectives which are not only some of the most relevant and pressing of our own times, but which are also at the forefront of current historiographical enquiry. Modules are taught in The Hold, giving unique opportunities to explore the archive’s collections, and teaching is always conducted in small group settings.

To augment classroom learning, build up your professional networks, and further your growth, you will have access to a variety of community events, trips, and external lectures and seminars associated with the programme, the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the Centre for Culture and Heritage at the University of Suffolk.

Year 1

• Making History - Mandatory
  • In Making History, you will learn essential and advanced skills for the management of your individual postgraduate research project. You will hear from, and – where relevant – work with, a range of experts and practitioners in public history, including staff at the HOLD as well as local and national institutions and organisations (including, but not limited to, archives, museums, and historic properties and sites).
• Conflict, Landscape and Environment (Optional)
  • This module will examine the history of conflict and considers its relationship to the environment and landscape in which it takes place. It has a global scope and although it focuses on the twentieth century it also reaches further back to help illustrate the idea of an enduring nature of conflict. It also considers the overlap between military history and environmental history.
• Lives in Motion (Optional)
  • This module will explore historical experiences of migration and mobility through a series of chronological case studies involving qualitative and quantitative research. It will examine practices and patterns of internal migration, emigration, and immigration as they have been experienced in modern Britain with a particular focus on the experience of the locality and the wider East Anglian region and its people.
• Local Places and Global Processes
  • This module will examine the relationship between the local and global in the context of the modern history of East Anglia. It will explore the period from the 1840s to the late-twentieth century to highlight the impact of global and extra-national forces on the experience of local places and local communities.
• Dissertation (Mandatory)
  • The dissertation is a mandatory element within the MA programme and gives students the opportunity to conceive, plan, manage and complete a substantial work of independent study based on the analysis of both primary and secondary sources. The dissertation should either be an investigation into a particular topic based upon the evaluation of primary sources, positioned and contextualised within their historiographical field, or an extensive and detailed review and analysis of the historiography of a specific historical topic.
• Modern Violence (Optional)
  • This module looks at how the eighteenth century witnessed a reconfiguration of power relations between bodies and states. Especially in the ‘Western’ world, political freedoms were claimed on the basis of an appeal to the universal rights of mankind. At the time of liberalism’s emergence, the ‘West’ and an increasingly colonised world diverged.
• The Time of their Lives? Childhood and Risk in the British World since 1800 (Optional)
  • This module explores the risks and dangers faced by children in the British world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and corresponding attempts to increase and extend child protection. Whilst the period witnessed the increased sentimentalisation of notions about childhood, it was also characterised by a number of dangers that posed particular risks to those below the age of majority, including empire, war, poverty, poor health, neglect and abuse.
• Public History (Optional)
  • This module invites you to become critical, engaged, working practitioners of public history. We will explore a retrospective of the ways that publics have engaged themselves in history, the ways that history has been made more accessible to wider audiences in more recent years, and the many opportunities open to historians to leverage emerging technologies and media to share knowledge and engage with new collaborators and audiences.

Entry Requirements

• UK Academic Requirements
  • An undergraduate degree with a minimum of 2:1 in a relevant subject.
  • Other qualifications, relevant work and life experience may be taken into account.
• International Requirements
  • Please select your country of permanent residence from the list below, specific requirements for your country will then be shown.
• Transferring Credit
  • If you have previously studied at higher education level before you may be able to transfer credits to a related course at the University of Suffolk and reduce the period of study time necessary to achieve your degree.

Career Opportunities

A history degree prepares you for a very wide variety of career paths and we’re excited to help you on that journey. Susan Wojcicki (CEO of YouTube from ), former President of the United States Joe Biden, and Louis Theroux, as just three examples, have all graduated from history programmes. Furthermore, many of the skills we train you in appear in the World Economic Forum’s list of top 10 skills of 2050, including analytical and critical thinking, active learning, analysis, creativity, flexibility, problem-solving, and comfort tackling complexity. It’s no surprise that The Telegraph ranks History as one of the Top Ten subjects for employability.

Graduates of our History provision go on to careers in a broad range of sectors including education, archive and library services, museum and heritage industries, the civil service, local and national government, media and advertising, publishing and journalism. We also have a high rate of success for our alumni going on to further study as they pursue their goals. Whatever you want to achieve, we look forward to working with you along the way.

Your Course Team

• Dr Harvey Osborne
  • Harvey is Course Leader for History at the University of Suffolk and a historian of modern Britain.
• Dr Keith Ruiter
  • Keith is Senior Lecturer in History.
• Professor Brian McCook
  • Brian is Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities.
• Vivienne Aldous
  • History lecturer Vivienne Aldous spent more than 20 years as a professional archivist and brings practical archival research experience to the University.
• Dr Louise Carter
  • Louise is a Lecturer in History, whose interests include gender in Georgian society, early-modern witch hunts and the impact of war on childhood.
• Dr John Greenacre
  • John is a military historian with a particular interest in 20th Century conflict.
• Dr Michael Sauter
  • Michael is Associate Professor of History and an historian of early modern Europe, with specialisations in intellectual history and the history of science.

Fees and Funding

• 2025/26
  • UK Full-time Tuition Fee: £9,150 per year
  • UK Part-time Tuition Fee: £1,525* per 30 credit module
  • International Full-time Tuition Fee: £15,210 per year
  • *Please contact Student Centre for further information on part-time fees

Facilities and Resources

Our beautiful, modern campus sits at the heart of the historic county town of Ipswich. Some of our teaching and learning happens in the superbly equipped Waterfront building, overlooking the picturesque marina, but most of our modules are taught in The Hold, the brand new flagship branch of the Suffolk Archives. Having the archives on campus means that our students get access to all of the treasures and expertise of our partnership with Suffolk Archives, creating additional opportunities for research, collaboration and joint ventures.

In between classes, you'll find plenty of areas for quiet study or a bite to eat throughout the campus, and the town is right on your doorstep.

Students at Suffolk also benefit from a growing modern research library, a fantastic range of research opportunities with our partners across the county, close proximity to national collections in London, such as the National Archives at Kew, and the rich cultural and historical landscape, including world-renowned museums and heritage sites of international importance.