Come along to one of our autumn Open Days in October and November. Hear from staff and students about our courses, find out about our accommodation and see our stunning campuses for yourself.
Study the civilisations that fascinate you, develop new skills, and gain valuable experience ready for a wide range of careers from archaeology to the heritage industry.
Join world-leading experts, including practising archaeologists and historians, to study History in all its breadth, from ancient civilisations such as the Minoan and Mycenean period to the present day. You'll take a broad approach to the past, from ancient mythology and the world of predynastic Egypt to the Crusades and the age of Nazi propaganda.
“When I studied Jack the Ripper in a module on Victorian Britain, we actually went to a surgical room in London to see how the Victorians would have investigated the murders. And we also have a cartoon archive in the library so, in the same module, we looked at some original political cartoons of Churchill – it’s a real piece of history that you’re holding in your hands!”
Brooke Huxter, BA History
In your first year, you’ll take core introductory modules on the principles of historical study and research, as well as exploring ancient Greek and Roman civilisations. A range of optional modules allows you to explore a huge breadth of worldwide history ranging across millennia.
In your second and third years, delve into classical Mythology, the British Empire, and journey from Roman art and architecture to the Crusades. You’ll also get the opportunity to learn a language: Ancient Greek or Latin.
In your final year, there is an option to take our extended essay or dissertation modules, on a subject of your choice. For this, you’ll research a historical topic, under the supervision of an expert in the field. Or you can gain valuable on-site experience through our fieldwork practice module. With three different pathway choices, you'll be assessed in the form of a professionally-published archaeological report.
Studying abroad is a great opportunity to discover a new culture and demonstrates to future employers that you have the enthusiasm to succeed in a new environment. Previous destinations include the US, Canada, Europe and Hong Kong. It is also possible to undertake a placement year in industry.
The University will consider applications from students offering a wide range of qualifications. All applications are assessed on an individual basis but some of our typical requirements are listed below. Students offering qualifications not listed are welcome to contact our Admissions Team for further advice. Please also see our general entry requirements.
ABB-BBB
The University welcomes applications from Access to Higher Education Diploma candidates for consideration. A typical offer may require you to obtain a proportion of Level 3 credits in relevant subjects at merit grade or above.
The University will consider applicants holding BTEC National Diploma and Extended National Diploma Qualifications (QCF; NQF; OCR) on a case-by-case basis. Please contact us for further advice on your individual circumstances. A typical offer would be to achieve DDM plus an A-level in either History, Classical Civilisation, Ancient History or Medieval History at B.
30 points overall or 15 points at HL
Pass all components of the University of Kent International Foundation Programme with a 60% overall average, including 60% in Academic Skills Development and 60% in History.
The University will consider applicants holding T level qualifications in subjects closely aligned to the course.
If you are an international student, visit our International Student website for further information about entry requirements for your country, including details of the International Foundation Programmes. Please note that international fee-paying students who require a Student visa cannot undertake a part-time programme due to visa restrictions.
Please note that meeting the typical offer/minimum requirement does not guarantee that you will receive an offer.
Please see our English language entry requirements web page.
Please note that if you do not meet our English language requirements, we offer a number of 'pre-sessional' courses in English for Academic Purposes. You attend these courses before starting your degree programme.
Duration: 3 years full-time, 6 years part-time
The following modules are indicative of those offered on this programme. This listing is based on the current curriculum and may change year to year in response to new curriculum developments and innovation.
On most programmes, you study a combination of compulsory and optional modules. You may also be able to take ‘elective’ modules from other programmes so you can customise your programme and explore other subjects that interest you.
This module is an introduction to Ancient Greek history, culture, and literature. Spanning almost two thousand years from the Bronze Age Mycenaeans to the Greeks living under the Roman Empire, classes will cover the major events, developments, and themes of Greek history and introduce you to the key evidence. You will also be introduced to the major works and genres of Greek literature. You will also be asked to consider and discuss the role of literature as a vehicle for public debate throughout Greek history, and its treatment of themes such as justice, religion, rationalism, violence, war, displacement, the body, sexuality, and gender.
This module is an introduction to Roman history, culture, and literature. Spanning almost 1,500 years from pre-Roman Italy to Late Antiquity, classes will cover the major events, developments, and themes of Roman history and introduce you to the key evidence. You will also be introduced to the major works and genres of Roman literature. You will also be asked to consider and discuss the role of literature as a vehicle for public debate throughout Roman history, and its treatment of themes such as power, justice, war and peace, class and social mobility, identity, slavery, and gender roles.
This module gives students a foundation in Ancient Greek, covering the fundamentals of morphology and syntax. By the end of the module, students will be able to read, comprehend, and translate simple sentences and short passages of Ancient Greek.
This module is designed for students who have already acquired some fundamentals of Ancient Greek morphology and syntax. It aims to introduce students to reading and understanding complex sentence and longer passages by providing them with more knowledge of grammar and syntax.
This module gives students a foundation in Latin, covering the fundamentals of morphology and syntax. By the end of the module, students will be able to read, comprehend, and translate simple sentences and short passages of Latin.
This module is designed for students who have already acquired some fundamentals of Latin morphology and syntax. It aims to introduce students to reading and understanding complex sentence and longer passages by providing them with more knowledge of grammar and syntax.
This module provides a general introduction to myth in the ancient world. Scholarship on approaches to mythology will inform the analysis of myth in its ancient setting. The curriculum will be designed to introduce students to a working repertoire of a large span of ancient (e.g. Greek) mythology and to its meanings and functions within its original context. A selection of case-study myths (represented in literature and/or iconography) will be used to examine the potential meanings and social functions of myth in general.
This module introduces the history of the wider Mediterranean from (roughly) the rise of Macedon to the destruction of Carthage. Focusing on the period's key events, main players, and various cultural traditions, the module enables students to widen their perspective on ancient history beyond Greece and Rome. The lectures, seminars, and readings are based around the history, archaeology, and literature of various ancient societies that met, fought, traded, and interacted culturally. These include the Persians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Macedonians, Greeks, Bactrians, Mauryans, and Romans.
The lectures are thematic, following a loosely chronological framework. The module kicks off with a survey of Near Eastern history to explore notions of empire, city state, and cultural interaction. The survey continues by introducing further ancient societies through the lens of thematic topics. The lectures form the basis for broader discussion of the transfer of cultural ideas across the ancient world. Topics include, among other things, the Greco-Buddhist art of the Hellenistic Far East and the legacy of the Persian empire across the Eurasian continent.
The seminars focus on training in the use and interpretation of ancient literary, documentary and material evidence. This includes written evidence, inscriptions and papyri, coins, and art and architecture. Where appropriate, discussion of these sources in the seminars will be used to introduce major debates in the study of the ancient Mediterranean. This includes questions about the legacies of the ancient world and their connections to contemporary debates around orientalism and colonialism.
This module will introduce the archaeology of the city of Canterbury and its environs, and the skills needed to study it. The course will review the subject both chronologically, from Bronze Age to 1945, and methodologically, covering non-invasive research methods and techniques used to communicate heritage. It will provide deep knowledge and understanding of the immediate environment of Canterbury and East Kent, and equip students with skills that they need to pursue further interests in archaeology. It will allow students to access the archaeological resources of Canterbury that are on their doorstep and position them well to study local landscape history, built archaeology, or museum collections, in preparation for the archaeological project or dissertation modules. Lectures will describe a full range of local archaeology, including Thanet Sacred Island, Bigbury Hillfort, the Saxon Shore, Excavations in Canterbury City, Canterbury Cathedral, and Medieval Vernacular Architecture. Seminars will equip students to understand research methods relating to Sites and Monuments records, LIDAR and earthwork survey, local museum collections, urban excavation reports, standing building remains, historic maps, and aerial photos. The module also introduces students to Canterbury as a world heritage site.
This module offers students a wide-ranging grounding in classical literature as a basis for the further study of Western literature within a comparative framework. Major works of ancient Greek and Roman literature are studied in order to enable students to appreciate literary engagement with the classical world: for example, myth; the relationship between human beings and the gods, between the sexes, and between the human and the animal; and the journey motif. Themes explored may include sexuality, violence, conceptions of justice, and metamorphosis.
The module introduces students to some of the major genres of Western literature (tragedy, comedy, the epic), and considers how these were theorised in antiquity. It also encourages students to reflect on questions of cultural transmission, and on why the myths represented in classical literature have proved to be such a rich source for the literature of the West.
This module considers the relationship between the English crown and aristocracy from the mid-fifteenth- to the mid-seventeenth centuries. During this turbulent period, England experienced considerable unrest as a result of the often vexed nature of monarcho-aristocratic relations – the Wars of the Roses, the mid-Tudor rebellions and civil war in the 1640s being the most obvious instances of tension and conflict – but there were also decades of relative calm and stability. The module will, therefore, consider not only the clashes between 'over mighty subjects' and 'under mighty kings', but will also explore art, culture, architecture and religion, as symbols of both royal and noble power, authority and influence.
The module introduces students to a broad range of material and themes relevant to the history of medicine, highlighting changes and continuities in medical practice and theory as well as in medical institutions and professional conduct. The section on ancient medicine addresses the role of Greek writers such as Hippocrates. The section on medieval medicine focuses on major epidemics, the origins of medical institutions, and the role of medical care and cure in the context of social and demographic changes. In particular, this section addresses the role of the Black Death and subsequent plagues, as well as the history of hospitals. The section on early modern and modern medicine explores the development of psychiatry and the asylum system in the 18th century, the rise of public health and the welfare state, and the role of social Darwinism and eugenics in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the late 19th and 20th centuries, the course will look at the role of gender and sexuality, medicine and modern warfare, health and disability, and modern medicine and medical ethics.
The module will focus primarily on the period from the 18th century onwards but will begin with an outline treatment of the British colonies in North America from initial European settlement. Interactions between Native American, African, African-American and European populations will be emphasised in the colonial period. Thereafter the module examines the first anti-colonial revolution in modern history and the creation of a new nation and concludes with the reconstitution of the nation after a bloody civil war and on the eve of large-scale industrialisation.
Themes include the causes and consequences of the Revolution, the new political system, the development of mass democracy, economic development and territorial expansion into the West, reform movements, sectional conflict between North and South, slavery, the Civil War and the re-establishment of a national order during Reconstruction.
The module is an introduction to the major themes, events and debates in U.S. history from 1880 until the present day. It will consider this period of domestic and international upheaval and trace key themes and ideas, including the connections between domestic and international developments, the evolution of the U.S. presidency, industrialization and reform, U.S. imperialism and isolationism, the growth of the national security state in the Cold War, post-war conformity versus 1960s radicalism as well as conservative politics in the 1970s and 1980s.
What happened when the Roman Empire collapsed? When did countries like England, France and Germany come into being? How violent were the Vikings? What was the Norman Conquest all about? Were the 'Dark Ages' really as grim as they are often made out to be? This module provides an introduction to the history of early medieval Europe (c.400–c.1100), examining the major political events and social changes that took place across this period. Along the way, we shall consider key aspects of warfare, religious life and intellectual culture. Students will obtain a clear understanding of the outlines of early medieval history between the end of the Roman Empire and the sweeping transformations of the late eleventh century, as well as a sense of what daily life was like for most people and of the types of evidence historians can use to understand this period. The weekly lectures guide students through the module, and seminars provide opportunities to explore key debates and historical problems in more detail through the analysis of primary sources.
This module is a survey of medieval Europe from c.1000 to c.1450. It includes elements of political, institutional, religious, social and cultural history.
The module is intended to provide students with a foundation that will allow them to make the most of other courses in European history, particularly those focusing on the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, by equipping them with a grounding in geography and chronology, as well as in a variety of approaches to the study of history.
This module examines the principal themes of the political, social and cultural history of Britain during the Victorian era (c. 1830 –1900). This period saw the building of one of the world's greatest empires, the transformation of Britain from a rural society into the world’s first and leading industrial nation, and the development of a modern state and new forms of democratic participation.
Europe's age of Revolutions 1700-1850 created our modern political and social system. It was time when the ancien régime was compromised and a completely new system of government, administration and law was put in place. This module will focus on the impact of Enlightened absolutism, and revolutionary reforms, on Europe during this vital turning point. Topics covered will include: Enlightened absolutism; Russia, Prussia; the Habsburg Monarchy; Poland-Lithuania; the French revolution; the Napoleonic Empire; Spain; Congress of Vienna; France 1830 & 1848; the revolutions of 1848.
This module will examine various aspects of the British army since its formation in 1660. The term 'Army and Society' has been used in the title of the module to emphasise that the central focus of this module will be a ‘new military history’ of the British army in this period. Thus the focus will be on how the army was recruited, the composition of the officer corps (pre and post purchase), the political interventions made by the army and the role of the army in shaping the British state. The module will include thematic studies of central issues such as the composition of the officer corps, the politics of the army and the survival of the regimental system which need to be placed in a long chronological pattern.
This module will offer a comparative study of wars in Europe from the French Revolutionary Wars to the Cold War. The module will adopt the 'war and society' approach to this topic and so will focus on the social composition and combat effectiveness of the armies concerned, as well as the causes of the wars, civil-military relations and the various peace treaties. There will also be discussion of these wars at the strategic and operational level. This module will consider the French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, Wars of Italian and German Unification (including the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars), First World War, Spanish Civil War, Second World War and Cold War. Students will thus gain an overview of the wars which shaped modern Europe and will also gain some insights into political and economic change in this period.
This module will provide a survey of the major events, themes and historiographical debates in early modern history from the Renaissance, through the Reformation to the Enlightenment. This period in European history witnessed the cultural and social upheaval of religious wars, the advent of print and the intellectual changes associated with Humanism, the formation of recognisably 'modern' nation states, and the beginnings of Europe's troubled engagement with the wider world. We situate Europe within a wider global context, examining how the experience of Europeans compared to that of people around the world.
This course explores the history of empires on a global scale. It challenges students to grasp the history of empires by examining their structures, instruments and consequences. The course will cover the history of empire from the sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. Themes will include the expansion of European empires (Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, Dutch and Belgian) in the Americas, Asia, the global rivalry for empires among European nations in the eighteenth century, the commercial expansion of the East India Companies in the Indian Ocean,, the expansion British colonies in India, slavery and the Abolition movement and the Revolt of 1857. It will provide students with a critical historical knowledge of imperialism and globalisation.
This course explores the history of empires on a global scale. It challenges students to grasp the history of empires by examining their structures, instruments and consequences. The course will cover the expansion of European empires from the end of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, in the age of decolonization. Topics include the conquest of Africa in the age of the so-called 'New Imperialism', the French and British Civilizing missions in Africa and Asia, the emergence of modern ideas of race, immigration, freedom struggles in Asia and Africa, and postcolonial cultural and political developments across the world. It will provide students with a critical historical knowledge of imperialism and globalisation and enable them to form a deep understanding of the postcolonial world.
Subjects to be covered will include: The Crimean War; The Franco-Prussian War and German unification; the origins of the First World War; the Treaty of Versailles; the League of Nations; the origins of the Second World War; the Cold War in Europe; the origins of the European Union; from détente in Europe to the fall of Communism.
This module builds on Introduction to Military History Pt. 1 and examines the separate natures of armies, navies and air forces. In addition, it looks at the factors which have shaped the experience of combat for the different branches of the armed forces and questions whether there is a timeless experience of combat. The module also looks at the great military thinkers of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries to establish their influence on the conduct of warfare including Clausewitz, Jomini through to twentieth century figures such as J.F.C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart.
This module opens with a study of the historiography of military history in order to determine the factors which have shaped the modern nature of military history as an academic discipline. From this point, the module goes on to look at the macro/strategic factors that have shaped the military experience and the waging of war including the impact of technology and the economic demands of war. The final part of the module is a series of case studies looking at the relationship between armed forces, politicians and their parent societies in order to determine the extent to which armed forces are reflections of their parent nations. The module is a vital pathway to Introduction to Military 2. Although the two are designed to be taken together, it is possible to study one alone.
You have the opportunity to select elective modules in this stage.
This module is intended to explore and reflect on the nature of responses to Classical mythology since its first appearance and particularly in the modern world. Scholarship on approaches to mythology, as well as reception studies theory (i.e. the critical framework through which modern responses to and understanding of Classical mythology can be interpreted), will inform the analysis of responses to myth in both its ancient and modern setting. A selection of case studies will enable the exploration of a range of cultural responses to Classical mythology and may include appropriations of myths across a range of media. These responses may include the Roman response to Greece to give a point of comparison for modern responses to ancient myth. The function of the myth in its new context will be a thematic focus in the module. During the module students will participate in a formative group project, designing their own adaptation of Classical myth with the intended purpose of public engagement. The module will reinforce awareness of both the polysemic nature of mythology as well as the relevance of Classics in the modern world.
This module examines in detail the history of the Roman Empire from the emergence of the Principate under Octavian/Augustus to the establishment of the Principate 2.0 under Trajan. It will also provide both a survey of a major period of Roman imperial history and an opportunity to study in greater depth the administrative, social, economic and religious developments of this period. Students will read widely from the ancient sources, historical, literary and documentary, and will be introduced to the inscriptional evidence for imperial history. This module will concentrate on the main administrative, social, economic and religious developments throughout the period rather than on the details of political and military history.
Students will read widely in the major ancient sources, including Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius, and will be introduced to the inscriptional and documentary evidence for imperial history.
Across much of Britain by the Late Bronze Age (from c. 1000 BC), economic and social organisation was beginning to assume forms that provided the foundations for subsequent fundamental transformations seen through the First Millennium BC: in population, in agriculture, in technology, in land holding and power and cultural forms. The period saw the emergence of technologies, manufacturing and craft skills, social structures and belief systems, husbandry and movement of enduring influence. The unfolding of this formative period, with its efficiently managed landscape dotted with farmsteads and hillforts, lavish metalwork and occasionally exotic burials, and its fluctuating and enigmatic relationships with mainland Europe, is accessible mostly through archaeological study alone: and what a rich resource that has proved to be, especially through recent studies and techniques. Only at the very end does limited historical information become available when we are told of the presence of chariot borne warriors, kings, queens and Druids.
This module spans the late Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting the often dramatic and striking archaeological and historical data within current interpretative frameworks. All parts of the British Isles will come into focus. Settlements, burials, material culture, environmental remains and monuments are explored revealing a richly nuanced matrix of cultural evidence that inspires interrogation and interpretation.
This module reviews texts relating to sexual behaviour attitudes and relationships throughout Latin Literature, raising questions about both the perception of sexuality in antiquity and how perception was translated into social and political relationships. Because of the nature of its coverage, it can be counted as either a literature or a social history course, and is intended as a wide-ranging complement to both. The module relies on primary texts from a variety of literary genres, from Epic and poetry to private letters, legal texts and inscriptions.
How do you imagine Roman Antiquity? How do the images produced for film, TV and popular fiction reflect the lives of those in antiquity? Can we see the everyday experience of Pliny, Juvenal or Augustine or of those who were killed in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79?
This module will explore everyday life in the Roman world, from haircuts, tattoos and gestures, to everyday rites and rhythms, whether domestic, social, political or religious, focusing on human experience, with its culturally specific organisation rather than abstract scholarly constructions. It will range from Augustan Rome to Late Antique Constantinople, and will draw on depictions, literary evidence (such as poems), original documents (from personal letters to minutes of meetings), inscriptions and especially archaeology, focusing on key sites where preservation is good, such as Pompeii, Ostia, Sardis and Petra. Here buildings, graffiti, occupation deposits and other traces will allow snapshots of everyday life to be constructed: of the houses, workshops, taverns, temples, theatres and churches of Antiquity. Students will be encouraged to undertake both empirical studies and imaginative reconstructions as part of their assessment, so that they understand the importance not only of describing what evidence remains of everyday life, but of actively reconstructing the past, and of engaging different types of evidence in a critical dialogue.
The module will allow the student to acquire knowledge and critical understanding of the fundamental principles related to collecting and interpreting objects within museums and managing these institutions. Students will be required to become familiar and engage critically, during the seminars, with the key references on these topics. Students will then be required to apply concepts and principles learnt in class in the context of their internship.
As part of their internship, each student will devise a special project in consultation with the mentor and the module convenor. Precise objectives and skills to be learnt will be recorded and tracked regularly. Students will keep a weekly log of their activities. The placement may take place either at a set period during the Easter vacation or at regular intervals over the Autumn and Spring terms.
This module introduces some of the major works in ancient philosophy in relation to ethics, aesthetics, political theory, ontology and metaphysics. Students will study substantial portions of primary texts by the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle the Epicureans, Stoics and/or the Skeptics. The emphasis throughout will be on the philosophical significance of the ideas studied. The module will concentrate on understanding key philosophical arguments and concepts within the context of the ancient intellectual tradition. This means that students will gain a critical distance from normative and modern definitions of philosophical terms in order to understand how ancient philosophy generally approached questions and problems with different suppositions and conceptions of reality, reason and the purpose of human existence.
This module explores 5th-century Athenian history through the plays that were put on stage during this period of war and political upheaval. Greek tragedies and comedies produced during this tumultuous period (472-405 BC) offer us some of the most enticing, yet challenging, evidence for the state of Athenian politics and attitudes to contemporary events (especially war and empire). In this module, the evidence of key plays will be set against other forms of historical evidence to illuminate the complex relationship between the types of evidence that survive and the nature of 'making history'.
This module examines in detail the history of the Roman Republic from 350 BC through to 100 BC, and provides both a survey of a major period of Roman history and an opportunity to study in greater depth the political, social, and economic consequences of the development of Rome's imperial ambitions in the Mediterranean. Students will read widely in the ancient sources, historical, literary and documentary. Students will read widely from a range of works including Polybius, Plutarch, Livy, Appian, Cicero, and Sallust.
The module focuses on solidifying students' knowledge of Ancient Greek grammar and vocabulary through exercises and by reading texts in the original. Students will participate in the close reading and interpretation of Greek literary texts through translation. This enhances their understanding of the key themes and ideas in the text.
In addition to consolidating intermediate knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, this module emphasises close reading and interpretation of Ancient Greek literary texts in their literary and cultural contexts.
The module focuses on solidifying students' knowledge of Latin grammar and vocabulary through exercises and by reading texts in the original. Students will participate in the close reading and interpretation of Latin literary texts through translation. This enhances their understanding of the key themes and ideas in the text.
In addition to consolidating advanced knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, this module emphasises close reading and interpretation of Latin literary texts in their literary and cultural contexts.
Virgil composed the Aeneid in order to provide Rome with an epic equal to Homer. Commonly regarded as one the greatest epics of the ancient world, the Aeneid is the story of the foundation of Rome; a tale of exile, war, passionate love and the deepest humanity. We will analyse, comment on and explore the epic, book by book. This will be intertwined with a thematic approach, investigating issues concerning the gods, fate, morality, art and gender.
This module examines, in detail, Greek history from the end of the Persian invasions to the fall of Athens in 404 BC. The main themes of the module are the rise and fall of the power of Athens, the Peloponnesian War and the role of the Persian Empire in Greek history in the 5th century BC. Particular attention will be paid to the causes of the conflict between Athens and Sparta and to the political and military history of the last three decades of the 5th century BC.
Homeric epic forms the foundation of literature in the Western tradition, its study therefore enriches our cultural understanding of both the ancient Greek past and our present. This module explores Homeric epic through the study of the Iliad and/or the Odyssey. Students will be introduced to the key concepts of the world of epic, such as xenia (guest friendship), kleos (reputation), and kudos (glory). They will also learn to recognise, and analyse the meaning of, epic conventions, such as stock epithets, type scenes, and formulaic repetition. These concepts and conventions will enhance the examination of the central themes of the Homeric epic, such as the hero, women, ethnicity, gods, war, peace, poetry, and mortality.
This module is concerned with the interaction between two contiguous but very different peoples, Egypt in the Late Period and Classical Greece. Though the Aegean world had a long history of contact with Egypt, the volume of contact increased dramatically under the XXVI (Saïte) Dynasty, with the foundation of commercial settlements, the development of vigorous trade relations and the arrival of many Greeks as traders, mercenaries and tourists. That contact had profound consequences both in the short and longer term; provided an essential support for the last great dynasty of independent Egypt; aided the rise of the East Greek cities of Ionia; and it influenced the development of Greek sculpture and architecture.
Equally important, it revealed to the Greeks a civilisation, which was deeply impressive, in many ways superior, yet alien. The immediate fruit of that perception lies in the stimulus to Greek thought and history writing, especially through Herodotus (a vital witness to Egyptian religion and society of this age). In the longer term, it shaped the way in which the West perceived Egypt, creating myths about its antiquity, its religion and its wisdom that continues to affect us today, not least in the shaping of traditional Egyptology. The module will be taught from a range of sources, archaeological, papyrological, historical and literary.
Society has always been fascinated by those deemed different and over time, unusual people have been viewed and constructed in a myriad of ways. The course explores the continuities and changes surrounding those classed as different. Broadly, the course will investigate the changing nature of difference from the 1780s to the 1920s. It will examine the body and mind as contested sites; spaces occupied by those considered different; the establishment of normality versus deviance; the changing conceptions of difference over time; relationships between unusual people and the wider society. Using a broad range of sources, from novels to film, the course will trace the shifting cultural constructions of difference.
This module will offer a comparative study of the armies of the Great Powers during the First World War. The module will adopt the 'war and society' approach to this topic and so will focus on the social composition and combat effectiveness of the armies concerned, along with civil-military relations and the higher strategic direction of the war. This module will therefore seek to answer some of the key questions of the Great War: how did the Great Powers manage to raise and sustain such large armies, why did soldiers continue to fight, given the appalling casualty rates; how politicised were the armies of the Great War, why were politicians allowed to embark on foolhardy military adventures, how crucial were the Americans in securing Entente victory and how effectively were economies adapted to meet the demands of the armies? Comparative topics for discussion in seminars will include; planning for war, recruitment and conscription, the officer corps, generals and politicians, discipline and morale; and attitudes to technological advances.
Between the founding of the republic and the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the United States came of age. The nation's population increased tenfold; its territory more than doubled. Driven by the high-minded ideals out of which the country had been founded, and the restless energy that saw a nation of thirteen colonies grow into a territorial republic of immense size, the United States became a symbol of a tumultuous century. In time, however, the republic would become a casualty of its own success. As the 1850s wore on, a battle over slavery and its place in a rapidly changing nation unraveled into sectional conflict, secession, civil war and a decade's long struggle after the war ended. The result was the largest forced emancipation of slaves in world history, and a conflict of barely calculable carnage. For better and for worse, the Civil War and its aftermath would become the great crucible into which a modern United States was born.
This module surveys the origins, conflicts and outcomes of the Civil War by not only understanding how the war altered the United States but understanding the Civil War and its aftermath in a broader context. Students will examine the causes and consequences of the conflict, by looking backwards to the roots of sectionalism and secession, and forwards into the postwar period, known as Reconstruction. The purpose of this module is to understand how all of these historical forces sowed the seeds of the republic's demise, while at the same time examining what kind of new nation Americans created in the ashes of the old one. Out of the war would come not only a new nation, but a fundamentally different United States. The violent collapse of slavery and the destruction of the plantation system brought profound change and innumerable conflicts, long after the South capitulated and two national armies laid down their weapons. In the wake of the war, Americans would attempt to construct a new republic, born as Abraham Lincoln urged in 1864, out of a 'new birth of freedom.’ The problems with that birth, and the contradictions that would endure, would mark the country right up to the present-day.
Often described as the 'Jewel in the Crown', British India played a key role (economic, strategic, military) in the expansion and consolidation of British Empire. In the 18th century India had been a territory held by the English East India Company; by the mid-19th century India became a crown colony and an integral part of the British Empire for reasons that included both resources and a role in enhancing imperial prestige.
Focussing mainly on the nineteenth century, this module explores the processes through which India became a colony and its broader impact on the British Empire. More specifically, the purpose of the module is to impart in students a critical understanding of the relationship between India and the British Empire, especially the ways in which India influenced imperial policies (social, economic) in both metropolitan Britain and in the wider British dominions and colonies. In short, this module offers a survey of the complex, long and historically consequential relation between India and the British Empire.
The course explores the rise and decline of the "imperial presidency" in the United States' conduct of foreign policy. During the Second World War and ensuing Cold War, successive Presidents were given considerable leeway to forge a foreign policy in their own image. A cooperative Congress and broad consensus about the United States’ place in the world facilitated an activist foreign policy. As this permissive domestic context began to erode in the late 1960s, the constitutional constraints on the President’s powers became more pronounced. The course will chart the evolution of U.S. foreign policy from Roosevelt to Obama: it will consider the substance of each incumbent’s foreign policy and their ability to work with existing constitutional constraints.
This module explores the three extreme ideologies which took hold of parts of Europe during the interwar period – communism (especially in Russia; later, the Soviet Union), fascism (especially in Italy, and later in Spain), and Nazism (in Germany). These ideologies will be assessed in three ways. Firstly, they will be examined individually, encompassing their emergence, rise to power and assumption of total control; here, the emphasis will be on the power of ideological thinking, the extent of popular support attained by the movements, and the country-specific reasons for their success. Secondly, the ideologies will be considered in comparison with one another, including the leadership styles of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco, the roles played by propaganda in their rise and rule, and the ways in which they utilised, or otherwise engaged in, violence to further their aims. And thirdly, the connections between them will be discussed, especially the notion that in the countries mentioned above, and later across Europe, the struggle between extreme ideologies of left and right became the defining issue of the period.
The purpose of this module is to give an overview of Russian history from the Napoleonic invasion of Russia to the collapse of tsarism in 1917. The reigns of all the tsars in this period will be examined, as will the regime's tendency to alternate between periods of reform and times of conservative reaction. Tsarism's failure to establish a functional state-society dialogue during the period 1812-1917 will be explored, and the corresponding emergence of liberal, nationalist and revolutionary visions for Russia's future. Topics covered will include the Decembrist revolt, the rise of the Russian intelligentsia, the 'Great Reforms' of the 1860s, the appeal of revolutionary populism and Marxism, industrialisation, and the growing radicalism of workers and peasants. The later part of the module will explore the 1905 revolution, the tenure of Stolypin as Prime Minister, the Russian origins of the First World War, and the collapse of tsarism in 1917. The impact of war (including the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese War) on Russia in this period will be examined, as will problems connected to the multi-ethnic make-up of the Russian empire. Students will also be introduced to Russian literature of the period where it is relevant to national, political or social questions, as well as aspects of religion and spirituality. The module will ultimately require students to evaluate why Russian tsarism failed to adapt to the challenge of modernity, and paid the price.
This course explores Southern Africa in a period when it was one of the most dynamic and turbulent regions on earth. Early encounters and conflicts between European settlers and African societies focused on land and labour and were shaped by rapid changes in local and global economies and societies. The discovery of gold and diamonds transformed the local economy and radically transformed the region's relations with the major imperial powers: Germany, Great Britain and Portugal. The Berlin conference of 1884-85 initiated a scramble for formal control of the region, its peoples and its riches, which culminated in the South African war of 1899-1902. Diverse African societies responded to interactions and conflicts with European encroachment and annexation in a range of ways. Processes of African and European empire building and expansion will be examined as will be the economic and political dynamics of European imperialism, both on the international and the local stage, demonstrating both their metropolitan and local causes. This module will look at the societies of both the colonisers and the colonised, also paying attention to African responses and resistance.
This module will address the causes, developments and legacy of the longest war in the Middle Ages, known as Hundred Years' War between England and France (1337-1453). The first two sessions will set up the context for the outbreak of the war, looking at the establishment of the Angevin Empire in northern France from the mid-twelfth century and the origins of the Hundred Years’ War, the causes of which have been debated at length by historians. Following the chronological development of the war in its four phases, the module will look at the European dimension of the war, which developed due to international alliances and attempts at pacifying the parties, mostly undertaken under the supervision of the papacy and the Empire. Alongside the political perspective, the module will pay attention to the defensive structures and military strategies employed during the war as well as the cultural milieu within which the war was fought that ultimately led to the growth of lay chivalric values.
Between 1815 and 1914 Britain engaged in only one European war. The Empire was, therefore, the most consistent and most continuous influence in shaping the army as an institution, in providing it with sustained exposure to warfare and in enabling it to develop and refine its professionalism as an institution. This module will examine various aspects of the British army's imperial experience in the period 1750-1920. The central focus will be on the campaigning in Africa and India, exploring how a relatively small number of British soldiers managed to gain and retain control of such vast territories and populations. Although the time period will run from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the focus of the module will be on the Victorian and Edwardian periods, reflecting the current historiography on the topic. The extended date parameters will, however, allow for thematic studies of central issues such as army reform and civil-military relations to be placed in their wider chronological context.
The French Revolution was one of the great turning points of European history. Indeed the deputies of the National Assembly claimed that the year 1789 marked the beginning of a new modernity. They consciously rejected the past by dismissing it as an 'ancien régime' or old order. This module will seek to understand and question this claim. It will examine critically the last decades of the Bourbon monarchy and ask if the term 'crisis' is an adequate description of this period. It will then turn to the revolutionaries’ ambitious programme of reform which sought to remould not only the institutional and governmental landscape of France but the very underpinnings of daily life. The Revolution deployed rapidly a new armoury of political concepts such as: national sovereignty, secular state and rights of man. Such innovations threw political legitimacy, deference towards social elites and the relationship between church & state into a dangerous state of flux. The module will examine the process by which an initially liberal agenda of freedom, tolerance and pluralism succumbed quickly to factional expediency, international warfare and political terror. It will also introduce students to some of the historiographic battlegrounds and stakes which have divided scholars of the French Revolution during the past two centuries.
This module covers fundamental transformations taking place in European society between c. 1450 and 1750. It focuses specifically on the everyday experiences of early modern Europeans, and how these changed as a result of, amongst others, global expansion, encounters with 'others', religious change, urbanisation and a innovation proliferation of new goods. Through looking at how these transformations affected the micro-level of men and women in their daily lives, this module aims to give insight into the ever-changing lives of Europeans before the onset of ‘modernisation’ in the 19th century. Themes that will be addressed in the lectures and seminars include ethnic and religious diversity, gender, the individual, witchcraft and material culture.
This module examines the European experience of war during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The lectures will consider the major national armies (French, Prussian, Austrian, Russian, British and Spanish) and how they were expanded and reformed in the wake of the French Revolution. Seminars will consider key themes, such as the nature of the officer corps, recruitment and conscription, the nature of 'People's War’, interactions between soldiers and civilians, developments in tactics, logistics and discipline and morale. The approach taken, will largely be that of ‘war and society’, focusing on the social history of the armies but there will also be some consideration of operational history and cultural history approaches to this topic. While this approach moves significantly away from ‘old military history’ with its focus on generals and battles, there will be some consideration of Napoleon’s methods of warfare and how these were successfully countered by his enemies.
Over the last two centuries, surgery has been radically transformed from a barbaric craft to a precision based science. Aided by new technologies, surgeons pioneered exploration into the body in ways never achieved before and became heroes of the hospital operating theatre and beyond. Historians have called this a surgical revolution. But how revolutionary was it? Did surgeons always get it right? Did new ideas, procedures and technologies immediately replace those that came before them? Is the history of surgery simply a story of continual progress? This module will examine major aspects of surgery from 1750 in order to evaluate the extent to which a 'surgical revolution' took place. Topics to be addressed include the rise of pathological anatomy; dissection and body snatching; anaesthesia; antisepsis and asepsis; vivisection; war; organ transplantation; and keyhole surgery. Adopting a social and cultural approach, the module will examine these topics in line with several key themes: the surgical profession, masculinity and heroism; patients, ethics and the body; technologies and techniques; and the sciences of pathology and physiology. The module will also explore the dissemination of surgical history today to public audiences through analyses of museum exhibits.
Early medieval Britain has often been mythologized in popular culture as a murky time of origins, heroes and legends: King Arthur and his round table; Beowulf and his dragon; and the earliest foundations of England. The historic reality is, however, far more fascinating and complex. The end of Roman imperial rule in Britain in the fifth century gave way to a period of seismic social, political and cultural change. Pagan religious practices became prevalent, while a Germanic language, Old English, became the dominant spoken tongue of communities in large swathes of southern Britain. At the same time, a fractured political landscape emerged, with new polities forming, including Kent, Mercia and Wessex, each with their own rulers, many of whom heralded themselves as kings. These transformations are often attributed to new waves of migration, and indeed, the events and developments of the period can only be understood fully in their broader European context. This module offers an introduction to these developments from the fifth to ninth centuries, tracing the formation of new kingdoms, assessing the changing, gendered structures of society, and exploring the cultural influences and practices of the period. We will meet a diverse series of individuals, including the notorious Bishop Wilfrid, the influential abbess Hild of Whitby, and Hadrian, the African leader of Canterbury's St Augustine’s abbey. In doing so, we will take the opportunity to explore the unique early medieval material and textual remains in Canterbury itself, and throughout the course a key question will be: how can we characterize such a large period of history with substance and integrity?
This module considers politics, religion, culture and society in Britain under the Stuart kings, and analyses the nature and causes of conflict arising from tensions between, and within these overlapping areas. The seventeenth century was a period of fluctuating fortunes in church and state. The growth of religious polarisation, heightened fears of popish conspiracy, and the emergence of increasing religious dissent and toleration, went hand-in-hand with the collapse of monarchical authority, an experiment with republican government, and eventually, after the restoration of royal power, permanent constitutional change. In the hands of the Stuarts, the seventeenth century was often a turbulent time for England, Scotland and Ireland, as the dynasty grappled with the practicalities of governing three separate kingdoms, whose interests only periodically combined and occasionally collided. The complexity of the period is reflected in its historiography, which covers a broad range of themes, and about which debates continue to flourish.
The module will explore the nature of the British Army in the Second World War. How it reacted to the crushing defeats of 1940 in France and 1942 in the Far East before transforming itself into a war-winning force. It will take a broad approach to military history, studying the political, economic and cultural realities behind the force.
Condemned by the international community for refusing to sign the Kyoto Accords, rendered powerless by electricity blackouts, and stricken by the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the United States of America is today embroiled in a narrative of environmental controversy and catastrophe. This module explores to what extent the USA has been ‘inviting doomsday’ throughout the modern (twentieth-century) period. Commencing with an introductory session on writing and researching American environmental history, the module is then split into four sections: Science and Recreation, Doomsday Scenarios, Environmental Protest, and Consuming Nature. Over the twelve weeks we will consider a range of environmental issues that include wildlife management in national parks, pesticide spraying on prairie farms, nuclear testing in Nevada, and Mickey Mouse rides in Disneyland. By the end of the module, we will have constructed a comprehensive map of the United States based around themes of ecological transformation, assimilation and decay.
You have the opportunity to select elective modules in this stage.
You have the opportunity to undertake a placement year, either at home or abroad, between the second and final year of your degree and to receive credits and a dedicated award for this achievement.
You'll gain work experience in a professional environment, develop skills that employers value and gain a head start in your career.
The placement can be either paid work or an internship. Tuition fees for the placement year are greatly reduced, and employers may offer expenses or a salary. The year is assessed on a pass/fail basis through employer feedback and a written report that you submit.
Going abroad as part of your degree is an amazing experience and a chance to develop personally, academically and professionally. You'll experience a different culture, gain a new academic perspective, establish international contacts and enhance your employability.
You can apply to add a year abroad to your degree programme from your arrival at Kent until the autumn term of your second year. The year abroad takes place between Stages 2 and 3 at one of our partner universities. Places and destination are subject to availability, language and degree programme.
You are expected to adhere to any academic progression requirements in Stages 1 and 2 to proceed to the year abroad. The year abroad is assessed on a pass/fail basis and does not count towards your final degree classification.
This module is intended to explore and reflect on the nature of responses to Classical mythology since its first appearance and particularly in the modern world. Scholarship on approaches to mythology, as well as reception studies theory (i.e. the critical framework through which modern responses to and understanding of Classical mythology can be interpreted), will inform the analysis of responses to myth in both its ancient and modern setting. A selection of case studies will enable the exploration of a range of cultural responses to Classical mythology and may include appropriations of myths across a range of media. These responses may include the Roman response to Greece to give a point of comparison for modern responses to ancient myth. The function of the myth in its new context will be a thematic focus in the module. During the module students will participate in a formative group project, designing their own adaptation of Classical myth with the intended purpose of public engagement. The module will reinforce awareness of both the polysemic nature of mythology as well as the relevance of Classics in the modern world.
This module examines in detail the history of the Roman Empire from the emergence of the Principate under Octavian/Augustus to the establishment of the Principate 2.0 under Trajan. It will also provide both a survey of a major period of Roman imperial history and an opportunity to study in greater depth the administrative, social, economic and religious developments of this period. Students will read widely from the ancient sources, historical, literary and documentary, and will be introduced to the inscriptional evidence for imperial history. This module will concentrate on the main administrative, social, economic and religious developments throughout the period rather than on the details of political and military history.
Students will read widely in the major ancient sources, including Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius, and will be introduced to the inscriptional and documentary evidence for imperial history.
This module addresses one of the fundamental aims of the programme, to familiarise students with the techniques of independent study and practice methodological skills they have acquired/are acquiring in their other modules. Projects may be developed on any suitable subject, subject to approval by the convenor, and the module can be linked with any of the modules in the programme. Choices will be informed by the student's personal interests, the fulfilment of the aims of the module, the availability of expert supervision, and the accessibility of relevant material.
This module addresses one of the fundamental aims of the programme, to familiarise students with the techniques of independent study and practice methodological skills they have acquired/are acquiring in their other modules. Projects may be developed on any suitable subject, subject to approval by the convenor, and the module can be linked with any of the modules in the programme. Choices will be informed by the student's personal interests, the fulfilment of the aims of the module, the availability of expert supervision, and the accessibility of relevant material.
This module will provide a detailed and research-led study of the century of political instability now known commonly to historians as the 'crisis' of the Roman Republic. It begins at the end of the 2nd century BCE amidst a period of rising populism, demagoguery, and socio-economic strain and fragmentation among the traditional elite. Proceeding through the civil wars of the 1st century BCE, from Sulla and Marius, Pompey and Caesar, and finally Antony and Octavian, the study ends with the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE and the accession of Octavian/Augustus as monarch over the Roman Empire.
The lectures will give detailed discussion of the varying scholarly interpretations of this much-discussed and famous period of Roman history, introducing students to the sources of evidence (historiography, biography, political philosophy, art, coinage, architecture, inscriptions) and providing models of their effective combination. In addition to the chronological survey of the period discussed, lectures will also develop major themes essential to the students' understanding of the century of political crisis that precipitated the transition from Republic to monarchy. Topics covered may include tradition and innovation; art and the political; consensus models; crisis theory; women and the sub-elite as political actors; rhetoric and its abuse; warfare and imperialism.
The seminars will provide hands-on training in the interpretation of the evidence for these periods and themes, both material and literary, arising out of the content of the immediately preceding lecture. Some seminars will also be reserved for discussion in order to clarify best practice for the assessments.
The module will allow students to acquire knowledge and critical understanding of the principles related to UNESCO World Heritage. Students will learn about the historical development of the concept of World Heritage and the related concept of intangible heritage and why they are often confused. Students will also acquire an in-depth understanding of the national management of World Heritage sites, and assess different approaches to managing sites. Students will then acquire advanced understanding of the latest key issues and themes, including on World Heritage and the Sustainable Development Goals, and on climate change. They will also debate recent ethical issues, including the difficulty of involving local communities or the destruction of heritage. During the course, practical and professional skills in drafting statements of value, key aspects of management plans and tourism plans will be acquired by students.
This module covers the battery of up-to-date fieldwork techniques deployed in the discovery, recording and excavation of archaeological sites using a combination of lectures, small-group work and practical assignments in the field. Topics include strategies for finding and recording sites, from the analysis of historical sources and aerial photographs, to geophysics, field walking, and the survey of earthworks and standing buildings. The full range of excavation techniques is examined including approaches to the excavation of special deposits such as burials and cremations and sampling strategies for the recovery of artefacts and environmental remains.
The module concludes with post-excavation analysis and strategies for publication and dissemination of archaeological reports covering both traditional and computer-based applications. Students enrolling for this module should be aware that some of the fieldwork practicals may be outside, and occasionally off campus, and possibly conducted on, Saturdays or during the Easter Vacation (for a Spring term module) or Summer Vacation (for an Autumn term module), the specific arrangements being dependent upon weather and site availability, etc.
This course will survey the evolution of the Mediterranean city from AD 300 to 650, the urban crisis that followed, and the direction which urban life took thereafter. City life in this period was, until recently, poorly understood, hindered by the prejudices of classical archaeologists, who removed late levels without record, and the selective interests of Christian archaeologists who concentrated on churches. Now new archaeological fieldwork has revealed much greater complexity, from urban collapse in the West to the flourishing cities of the sixth century East, which provided a foundation for much of Early Islamic urbanism.
Although north-west Europe is included, the Mediterranean is the predominantly the focus of this module where urban life was strongest, throughout the period. Lectures will explore both thematic and regional syntheses, with a major distinction drawn, not between a Greek East and a Latin West, but between a Mediterranean core and a northern periphery. An attempt will be made to link changes in the physical appearance of cities to wider events and processes: whether military, political, religious or economic in character. Seminars will explore aspects of the rich source material available, whether drawn from architectural remains, stratigraphic archaeology, epigraphy, or selected written sources of the period.
Across much of Britain by the Late Bronze Age (from c. 1000 BC), economic and social organisation was beginning to assume forms that provided the foundations for subsequent fundamental transformations seen through the First Millennium BC: in population, in agriculture, in technology, in land holding and power and cultural forms. The period saw the emergence of technologies, manufacturing and craft skills, social structures and belief systems, husbandry and movement of enduring influence. The unfolding of this formative period, with its efficiently managed landscape dotted with farmsteads and hillforts, lavish metalwork and occasionally exotic burials, and its fluctuating and enigmatic relationships with mainland Europe, is accessible mostly through archaeological study alone: and what a rich resource that has proved to be, especially through recent studies and techniques. Only at the very end does limited historical information become available when we are told of the presence of chariot borne warriors, kings, queens and Druids.
This module spans the late Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting the often dramatic and striking archaeological and historical data within current interpretative frameworks. All parts of the British Isles will come into focus. Settlements, burials, material culture, environmental remains and monuments are explored revealing a richly nuanced matrix of cultural evidence that inspires interrogation and interpretation.
This module reviews texts relating to sexual behaviour attitudes and relationships throughout Latin Literature, raising questions about both the perception of sexuality in antiquity and how perception was translated into social and political relationships. Because of the nature of its coverage, it can be counted as either a literature or a social history course, and is intended as a wide-ranging complement to both. The module relies on primary texts from a variety of literary genres, from Epic and poetry to private letters, legal texts and inscriptions.
How do you imagine Roman Antiquity? How do the images produced for film, TV and popular fiction reflect the lives of those in antiquity? Can we see the everyday experience of Pliny, Juvenal or Augustine or of those who were killed in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79?
This module will explore everyday life in the Roman world, from haircuts, tattoos and gestures, to everyday rites and rhythms, whether domestic, social, political or religious, focusing on human experience, with its culturally specific organisation rather than abstract scholarly constructions. It will range from Augustan Rome to Late Antique Constantinople, and will draw on depictions, literary evidence (such as poems), original documents (from personal letters to minutes of meetings), inscriptions and especially archaeology, focusing on key sites where preservation is good, such as Pompeii, Ostia, Sardis and Petra. Here buildings, graffiti, occupation deposits and other traces will allow snapshots of everyday life to be constructed: of the houses, workshops, taverns, temples, theatres and churches of Antiquity. Students will be encouraged to undertake both empirical studies and imaginative reconstructions as part of their assessment, so that they understand the importance not only of describing what evidence remains of everyday life, but of actively reconstructing the past, and of engaging different types of evidence in a critical dialogue.
The module will allow the student to acquire knowledge and critical understanding of the fundamental principles related to collecting and interpreting objects within museums and managing these institutions. Students will be required to become familiar and engage critically, during the seminars, with the key references on these topics. Students will then be required to apply concepts and principles learnt in class in the context of their internship.
As part of their internship, each student will devise a special project in consultation with the mentor and the module convenor. Precise objectives and skills to be learnt will be recorded and tracked regularly. Students will keep a weekly log of their activities. The placement may take place either at a set period during the Easter vacation or at regular intervals over the Autumn and Spring terms.
This module introduces some of the major works in ancient philosophy in relation to ethics, aesthetics, political theory, ontology and metaphysics. Students will study substantial portions of primary texts by the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle the Epicureans, Stoics and/or the Skeptics. The emphasis throughout will be on the philosophical significance of the ideas studied. The module will concentrate on understanding key philosophical arguments and concepts within the context of the ancient intellectual tradition. This means that students will gain a critical distance from normative and modern definitions of philosophical terms in order to understand how ancient philosophy generally approached questions and problems with different suppositions and conceptions of reality, reason and the purpose of human existence.
This module explores 5th-century Athenian history through the plays that were put on stage during this period of war and political upheaval. Greek tragedies and comedies produced during this tumultuous period (472-405 BC) offer us some of the most enticing, yet challenging, evidence for the state of Athenian politics and attitudes to contemporary events (especially war and empire). In this module, the evidence of key plays will be set against other forms of historical evidence to illuminate the complex relationship between the types of evidence that survive and the nature of 'making history'.
This module is aimed at those students who would like to follow a career as Primary or Secondary School teachers but is also suitable to those who would like to combine an academic course with work experience. Placements in a school environment will enhance the students' employment opportunities as they will acquire a range of skills. It will also provide students with the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of Classical Studies and Ancient History in the primary or secondary school context. The university sessions and schoolwork will complement each other. At the university sessions students will benefit from the opportunity to discuss aspects related to their placement and receive guidance.
Students will normally make visits to a school, where each student will have a designated teacher-mentor who will guide their work in school. They will observe sessions taught by their designated teacher and possibly other teachers. Initially, for these sessions students will concentrate on specific aspects of the teachers' tasks, and their approach to teaching a whole class. As they progress, it is expected that their role will be, to some extent, teaching assistants, by helping individual pupils who are having difficulties or by working with small groups. They may teach brief or whole sessions with the whole class or with a small group of students where they explain a topic related to the school syllabus. They may also talk about aspects of University life.
This module examines in detail the history of the Roman Republic from 350 BC through to 100 BC, and provides both a survey of a major period of Roman history and an opportunity to study in greater depth the political, social, and economic consequences of the development of Rome's imperial ambitions in the Mediterranean. Students will read widely in the ancient sources, historical, literary and documentary. Students will read widely from a range of works including Polybius, Plutarch, Livy, Appian, Cicero, and Sallust.
This module takes a critical and interdisciplinary approach to modern interpretations of ancient literature, culture and art. After first developing a rich and detailed view of a key theme in classical studies (e.g. inebriation, madness, divine signs, humour, emotion, ugliness, the senses), the module will then explore how its central theme is addressed both in the ancient world and in twenty-first century debates.
The module provides students with an advanced understanding of Ancient Greek Prose through the reading, translation and interpretation of ancient text(s). Students will gain a systematic understanding of Greek by reading texts in the original with special attention to stylistics, textual criticism and/or thematic development through the use of author- and theme-specific scholarly tools and publications. The emphasis in this module will be on the development of critical skills that aid in the analysis of the text(s) as literature within a broader literary and cultural context.
The module focuses on solidifying students' knowledge of Ancient Greek grammar and vocabulary through exercises and by reading texts in the original. Students will participate in the close reading and interpretation of Greek literary texts through translation. This enhances their understanding of the key themes and ideas in the text.
In addition to consolidating intermediate knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, this module emphasises close reading and interpretation of Ancient Greek literary texts in their literary and cultural contexts.
The module provides students with an advanced understanding of Latin Prose through the reading, translation and interpretation of ancient text(s). Students will gain a systematic understanding of Latin by reading texts in the original with special attention to stylistics, textual criticism and/or thematic development through the use of author- and theme-specific scholarly tools and publications. The emphasis in this module will be on the development of critical skills that aid in the analysis of the text(s) as literature within a broader literary and cultural context.
The module provides students with an advanced understanding of Latin Verse through the reading, translation and interpretation of ancient text(s). Students will gain a systematic understanding of Latin by reading texts in the original with special attention to stylistics, textual criticism and/or thematic development through the use of author- and theme-specific scholarly tools and publications. The emphasis in this module will be on the development of critical skills that aid in the analysis of the text(s) as literature within a broader literary and cultural context.
The module focuses on solidifying students' knowledge of Latin grammar and vocabulary through exercises and by reading texts in the original. Students will participate in the close reading and interpretation of Latin literary texts through translation. This enhances their understanding of the key themes and ideas in the text.
In addition to consolidating advanced knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, this module emphasises close reading and interpretation of Latin literary texts in their literary and cultural contexts.
Virgil composed the Aeneid in order to provide Rome with an epic equal to Homer. Commonly regarded as one the greatest epics of the ancient world, the Aeneid is the story of the foundation of Rome; a tale of exile, war, passionate love and the deepest humanity. We will analyse, comment on and explore the epic, book by book. This will be intertwined with a thematic approach, investigating issues concerning the gods, fate, morality, art and gender.
This module examines, in detail, Greek history from the end of the Persian invasions to the fall of Athens in 404 BC. The main themes of the module are the rise and fall of the power of Athens, the Peloponnesian War and the role of the Persian Empire in Greek history in the 5th century BC. Particular attention will be paid to the causes of the conflict between Athens and Sparta and to the political and military history of the last three decades of the 5th century BC.
Homeric epic forms the foundation of literature in the Western tradition, its study therefore enriches our cultural understanding of both the ancient Greek past and our present. This module explores Homeric epic through the study of the Iliad and/or the Odyssey. Students will be introduced to the key concepts of the world of epic, such as xenia (guest friendship), kleos (reputation), and kudos (glory). They will also learn to recognise, and analyse the meaning of, epic conventions, such as stock epithets, type scenes, and formulaic repetition. These concepts and conventions will enhance the examination of the central themes of the Homeric epic, such as the hero, women, ethnicity, gods, war, peace, poetry, and mortality.
The module is concerned with the history, archaeology and culture of the ancient Graeco-Roman world, and covers the period from c. 776-479 BC. Among the subjects examined in detail are the growth of the formation of the Greek polis (city-state, a central feature of the civilisation of Greece and Rome), the impact of colonisation on the Greek world, and the circumstances for the invasion of Greece by the contemporary Persian world-empire.
This module examines in detail the history of the Roman Empire from the death of the last Flavian emperor (96 CE) to Constantine's establishment as sole emperor in 324 CE. It thus provides both a survey of a major period of Roman imperial history and an opportunity to study in greater depth the administrative, social, economic and religious developments of this period. Students will read widely in the ancient sources (historical, literary and documentary) and will be introduced to the inscriptional, numismatic, and papyrological evidence for imperial history. This module will concentrate on the main administrative, social, economic and religious developments throughout the period rather than on the details of political and military history.
Students will read widely in the major ancient sources, including Pliny, Dio Cassius, Herodian, and the Historia Augusta. Students will also get experience in working with the documentary evidence for imperial history, including inscriptions, coins, papyri, as well as legal sources.
This module is concerned with the interaction between two contiguous but very different peoples, Egypt in the Late Period and Classical Greece. Though the Aegean world had a long history of contact with Egypt, the volume of contact increased dramatically under the XXVI (Saïte) Dynasty, with the foundation of commercial settlements, the development of vigorous trade relations and the arrival of many Greeks as traders, mercenaries and tourists. That contact had profound consequences both in the short and longer term; provided an essential support for the last great dynasty of independent Egypt; aided the rise of the East Greek cities of Ionia; and it influenced the development of Greek sculpture and architecture.
Equally important, it revealed to the Greeks a civilisation, which was deeply impressive, in many ways superior, yet alien. The immediate fruit of that perception lies in the stimulus to Greek thought and history writing, especially through Herodotus (a vital witness to Egyptian religion and society of this age). In the longer term, it shaped the way in which the West perceived Egypt, creating myths about its antiquity, its religion and its wisdom that continues to affect us today, not least in the shaping of traditional Egyptology. The module will be taught from a range of sources, archaeological, papyrological, historical and literary.
This source-based class challenges participants to consider the background, causes, and content of the American Revolution from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean from the Stamp Act debates to the establishing of the Federal Constitution. Students will be asked to digest primary documents from political speeches in the British Parliament, to American political pamphlets. Students will consider the character and place of the American Revolution within European and American economic, political, and cultural development. The course will examine the conditions under which American Revolution emerged; the part played by empire, and the distinctive combination of ideological and theological strands that produced a compelling challenge to British Parliamentary authority for the first time.
The French Revolution was one of the great turning points of European history. Indeed the deputies of the National Assembly claimed that the year 1789 marked the beginning of a new modernity. They consciously rejected the past by dismissing it as an 'ancien régime' or old order. This module will seek to understand and question this claim. It will examine critically the last decades of the Bourbon monarchy and ask if the term 'crisis' is an adequate description of this period. It will then turn to the revolutionaries’ ambitious programme of reform which sought to remould not only the institutional and governmental landscape of France but the very underpinnings of daily life. The Revolution deployed rapidly a new armoury of political concepts such as: national sovereignty, secular state and rights of man. Such innovations threw political legitimacy, deference towards social elites and the relationship between church & state into a dangerous state of flux. The module will examine the process by which an initially liberal agenda of freedom, tolerance and pluralism succumbed quickly to factional expediency, international warfare and political terror. It will also introduce students to some of the historiographic battlegrounds and stakes which have divided scholars of the French Revolution during the past two centuries.
This special subject will introduce students to the pros and cons of the historiographical debate surrounding Napoleonic and Revolutionary French history. It will give final year students an alternative means of engaging with the familiar historical category of 'Empire.' The focus on French expansion abroad, in the early nineteenth century, challenges one to move away from understanding the Napoleonic Empire in national terms; this course in essence, by its very nature, is European in both scope and content. To do this it will explore processes of acculturation and international competition on a thematic basis. It will examine, in broad multi-national manner, the complex interaction between centre and periphery or what Italians, more prosaically, describe as conflict between 'stato reale' and 'stato civile.'
This special subject will investigate the Napoleonic Empire in its many facets. Students will be urged actively to pursue their individual interests in either war and society, Empire, political culture and/or gender.
The diplomatic relationship between Britain and France in the first half of the twentieth century can be seen as a marriage of convenience. Not natural historical allies, the British and French governments were forced increasingly to work together to combat the tensions in Europe that led to the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars.
This module explores the love-hate relationship between the two countries in tracing the origins of the Entente Cordiale, and by addressing some of the major historiographical debates in twentieth century international history. Lectures will provide students with an overview of these debates and the topics listed below, and seminars will encourage students to consider their understanding of these areas and critically engage with them through discussion.
Themes explored will typically include, imperialism, political reform and its impact on foreign policy formation, democratisation, the rise of nationalism, peacemaking at the end of the two world wars; the Ruhr Crisis, the Treaty of Locarno, the League of Nations; the Kellogg Briand Pact; the Briand Plan; the Geneva disarmament conferences of the late 1920s/early 1930s; Eastern Europe and Russia; different strategies to deal with the rise of Hitler; the fall of France, the rise of Vichy; the secret war; the outbreak of the Cold War.
This modules address the politics, ideology and culture of the USSR in the post-war era. It starts with an exploration of late Stalinism, before covering Khrushchev's reforms, Brezhnev's neo-Stalinism and Gorbachev's perestroika. Along with these themes, time will be devoted to: the intelligentsia; labour camps and the release of detainees in the 1950s; Soviet science; religion and spirituality; emerging nationalism; the Human Rights Movement; 'village’ prose; the Soviet economy; foreign policy and policy in the ‘near abroad’; the collapse of the USSR; and Yeltsin’s reformism and the new Russian state. The approach is interdisciplinary, and this will be reflected in the wide range of primary sources used; and throughout the module students will be introduced to the relevant historiography.
This special subject explores California history from Native American times to modern day. It charts the rise to power of the US Pacific Coast and the many complexities that come with mass immigration, technological innovation and cultural frontierism. The special subject does not provide a simple narrative of state history, but instead employs a series of case studies to illuminate key periods of California's past and present, auto-stops, if you will, to navigate the Golden State as both a place, an idea and, most significantly, an image. The case studies also facilitate an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, for example, the Great Depression in California is considered by a session on the life of the hobo, his music, migration, work and community in the period. Sources here include Nels Anderson’s classic sociological text 'On Hobos and Homelessness’ and collections of Okie/hobo music of the period. A number of movie showings will relate both the rise of Hollywood as a state industry as well as Hollywood’s own social commentary on the California experience. The California dream and the notion of California exceptionalism will be critiqued across the module. Students will be expected to immerse themselves in the culture industry of the state and truly explore what (if anything) makes California so special or Golden.
This module aims to study the Court of Queen Elizabeth I as the fulcrum of power and politics in the realm and as a cultural centre. Students will be introduced to the historiography and current interpretations of the political and cultural history of England and Wales in the Elizabethan period. They will analyse a wide range of original primary sources on the workings of the royal household, and on the processes of policy-making by the Queen and the privy council in relation to the government of the kingdom, and be invited to examine critically the evidence for the reputation of the Elizabethan Court as the centre of patronage in the 'English Renaissance' of literature and drama. There will be regular opportunities to discuss research in progress on these subjects.
This course examines the changing nature of medical spaces from 1750. From eighteenth century London specialist hospitals for conditions such as fistula, to rural rehabilitation centres in the 1940s, this course explores the role of the medical profession, the state, religion and patients in the creation and maintenance of health. Medical spaces changed significantly in this period, moving from private to public, from long term rest cures to outpatient care, and from religious institutions to secular ones. The expansion of civic buildings in the nineteenth century, and the establishment of the NHS in 1948 are two important examples that demonstrate how medical spaces were interwoven in the wider medical, political, economic and socio-cultural sphere.
This module covers a wide time period, but within this there will be a number of case-studies which will make this more manageable for students. Ultimately the module will revolve around the study of a number of military traditions within Ireland. The Protestant / Loyalist volunteering tradition, witnessed through those who defended Derry and Enniskillen in 1689, the Irish Volunteer movement of 1778-1792, the Yeomanry of 1796-1834, the Ulster Volunteer Force of 1913-1920, the Ulster Special Constabulary 1920-1970, Ulster Defence Regiment 1970-1992 and the various Loyalist paramilitary groups – Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, Loyalist Volunteer Force, etc. which emerged from 1966. The Republican military tradition seen with the United Irishmen of 1792-1803, the Young Irelanders of 1848, the Fenian movement of 1858-1916, the Irish Volunteers of 1913-16 and the Irish Republican Army in the many forms it has existed since 1916. The 'Wild Geese' tradition of Irishmen serving in foreign armies was most noticeable with the Irish Brigades formed in the French and Spanish armies in the 1690s, but was also witnessed in the American Civil War and, indeed, South American Wars of Liberation. The tradition of Irish service within the British army as both regular and amateur soldiers will be considered in detail, with particularly a focus on the role of the Irish soldier in the British Empire.
Case-studies will also consider the First World War, when approximately 200,000 Irishmen and 10,000 Irish women served in the British forces and the Second World War when the contribution of Northern Ireland can be compared to the experience of Eire, the latter often described as an 'unneutral neutral' given the numbers of Irish citizens who served in the British forces during that conflict.
This module will end with a consideration of the recent Northern Ireland troubles of 1966-1998.
The overthrow of white settler minority rule and apartheid by the peoples of South Africa and Zimbabwe marked a key period in the history of the twentieth century. This module traces the trajectory of these linked liberation struggles both by examining contemporary written and visual sources and by engaging with current debates. Themes to be discussed include the dynamics of anti-colonial nationalism, the tactics and strategy of armed insurrection, the influence of the Cold War, the use of propaganda and the ambiguities of independence.
Through a number of chronologically- and geographically-diverse case studies, this Special Subject will trace the evolving notion of 'mercenaryism' from its role in establishing the fiscal military state in the Early-Modern period through to its more modern connotation with ‘freedom fighters’ acting beyond – and often against – the defined nation state. It will cover events in Europe, North America, South America, the Indian sub-continent, Africa, the Middle-East, and Asia. In doing so, students are invited to consider the impact of ‘transnational soldiering’ on the development of modern warfare in a global context. The continued presence of these ‘foreign soldiers’ around the world poses interesting questions concerning identity, military cultures, global networks and encounters, as well as the transfer of ideas across borders. It ties together the experience of national and colonial soldiery, international volunteerism, and statelessness within a broader context of the 19th & 20th Centuries’ nationalist and internationalist movements. In a broader cultural sense, students will reflect on the importance behind the semantics of ‘mercenaryism’ and how the term has been perceived, evoked, and moulded by society over time. ‘Mercenary’, ‘guerrilla’, and ‘franc-tireur’ are often pejorative terms used to describe combatants acting outside the established laws and customs of war. Yet, these are not far removed from the more sympathetic terms of ‘people’s army’, ‘foreign/political exile’, and ‘freedom fighter’. Understanding how and why these terms converge forms the primary learning objective.
This module is designed to give final-year Single or Joint Honours History students an opportunity to independently research a historical topic, under the supervision of an expert in the field. Students are required to submit a dissertation (9,000 words +/-10%) based on research undertaken into primary sources, and an extended reading of secondary sources. The module is designed to allow students to engage in their own historical research into any chosen topic (under the guidance of a supervisory team in the first instance, and later an individual supervisor), and to present their research in a cogent and accessible format.
Charlemagne (r. 768–814) is often called 'the father of Europe', and it was under the rule of his dynasty, the Carolingians, that European political institutions and culture were consolidated – so much so that one can speak of a ‘Carolingian order’. This special subject looks at how the Carolingians tried to bring order to every aspect of society, including government, religious observance, the economy, the law, education and learning, and even individual behaviour. One feature of this drive for ‘correction’ (as it was known) was an unprecedented volume of written documentation, which allows the historian both to perceive a coherent plan of reform and to test the claims of the reformers. Seen from another angle, however, Charlemagne and his family were merely brutal warlords, whose collection of a mountain of plunder gave them the means to produce propaganda that portrayed their regime as ordered, reforming and divinely sanctioned. Can the two views be reconciled? What exactly did the Carolingians accomplish? Was the reform ever anything more than empty rhetoric? Could the Carolingians survive without constant military triumphs? These are the key questions the sources allow us to address.
The course explores the causes, conduct and consequences of the French and American wars in Vietnam. The course begins in the aftermath of the Second World War with the French Indochina War and charts the United States' growing concern with the region, the Americanisation of the war in Vietnam under President Johnson and eventual disengagement under President Nixon. In addition to placing the conflicts in their regional and international contexts, the course will consider the military strategies implemented in the field and the domestic challenges inherent to fighting a "limited war". The second part of the course focuses on the domestic aspects of the American war including the role of the media, the evolution of the anti-war movement and civil-military tensions. In addition to acquiring substantive knowledge, students will practice core skills, including accessing and critically assessing primary sources, communicating effectively orally and in their written work as well as working in groups.
The module will chart the evolution of contemporary British foreign policy. It begins firmly in the era of pre-First World War diplomacy, and examines the legacy of Britain's role in nineteenth century international relations, including the role of empire. The module will explore the nature of the old and new diplomacy as well as issues relating to foreign policy formation. It will include an evaluation of the role of diplomats and the work and operation of the Foreign Office. It will also include a discussion of the main themes and issues of Britain’s relations with all of the major European powers from 1904-1973, including the origins of the two world wars, the connection between foreign policy and political ideology. The module will also examine Britain’s relations with the United States during this period and with the Far East, especially with Japan. This module does not significantly overlap with HI 6034/5 Anglo-French Relations because only one session of the module will be devoted to Anglo-French relations in this period. Likewise, there will be no significant overlap with HI6045 Origins of the Second World War because that module examines the origins of that conflict from a global perspective. It makes some reference to the Anglo-French dimension, but it is not central to the module.
The course will provide students with a historical understanding of command at a variety of levels by looking at various types of battle scenarios, both strategic and tactical. The course will take an international perspective as well as a chronological one, but will rely primarily on Anglo-American case studies, the colonial struggles of the 19th century, the retreat from empire, the two world wars and the recent actions in the Gulf. As well as providing historical lessons, students will be challenged to solve universal command problems still applicable to modern warfare, and thus provides a transferable skill in both a specific sense - useful for anyone contemplating a career in the armed forces - and in a generic sense it will stimulate the skills needed to deconstruct and solve problems logically while taking account of a variety of factors and perspectives.
The 2024/25 annual tuition fees for this course are:
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
For students continuing on this programme, fees will increase year on year by no more than RPI + 3% in each academic year of study except where regulated.*
The University will assess your fee status as part of the application process. If you are uncertain about your fee status you may wish to seek advice from UKCISA before applying.
Fees for undergraduate students are £1,850.
Fees for undergraduate students are £1,385.
Students studying abroad for less than one academic year will pay full fees according to their fee status.
Find out more about accommodation and living costs, plus general additional costs that you may pay when studying at Kent.
We have a range of subject-specific awards and scholarships for academic, sporting and musical achievement.
Search scholarshipsKent offers generous financial support schemes to assist eligible undergraduate students during their studies. See our funding page for more details.
At Kent we recognise, encourage and reward excellence. We have created the Kent Scholarship for Academic Excellence.
The scholarship will be awarded to any applicant who achieves a minimum of A*AA over three A levels, or the equivalent qualifications (including BTEC and IB) as specified on our scholarships pages.
All modules have a weekly small-group seminar, and most also have weekly lectures. We encourage you to take part in excavations and field surveys with staff and associated institutions, and student bursaries are available to support this.
Assessment at all stages varies from 100% coursework to a combination of examination and coursework.
For a student studying full time, each academic year of the programme will comprise 1200 learning hours which include both direct contact hours and private study hours. The precise breakdown of hours will be subject dependent and will vary according to modules. Please refer to the individual module details under Course Structure.
Methods of assessment will vary according to subject specialism and individual modules. Please refer to the individual module details under Course Structure.
The programme aims to:
You gain a knowledge and understanding of:
You gain the ability to:
You gain the ability to:
You gain the ability to:
95% of Classics students and 90% of History students who completed the National Student Survey 2022 were satisfied with the quality of teaching on their course.
History at Kent was ranked 1st for research quality in The Complete University Guide 2023.
As part of your degree, you develop critical thinking, transferable knowledge and skills that enable you to work in a variety of professions.
Our graduates have gone on to work in:
A number of our students also continue to postgraduate study.
The University has a friendly Careers and Employability Service, which can give you advice on how to:
Alongside specialist skills, you also develop the transferable skills graduate employers look for, including the ability to:
You can also gain additional skills by signing up for one of our Kent Extra activities, such as learning a language or volunteering.
If you are from the UK or Ireland, you must apply for this course through UCAS. If you are not from the UK or Ireland, you can apply through UCAS or directly on our website if you have never used UCAS and you do not intend to use UCAS in the future.
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