School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies

Postgraduate study in History at Portsmouth

If you are interested in continuing your study of history at postgraduate level, the History team at the University of Portsmouth offers a flagship Master's course: MA History of War, Culture and Society.

Doctoral students may also wish to undertake their research at Portsmouth, within the University's highly-regarded research centre, CEISR.

Taught MA in history

The University's MA in History of War, Culture and Society is designed to examine the ways in which changes in society and warfare influence one another, and how this is expressed in culture between the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. It builds strongly on the work that students of social and cultural history will already have undertaken, and allows them to apply these approaches in terms of modern warfare.

For those interested in pursuing research to higher levels, the programme is directly tailored to the research preparation requirements of relevant funding bodies, and provides a solid methodological grounding for doctoral work as well as enhancing a graduate's profile.

MPhil/PhD Study

This is offered on a full-time and part-time basis. Competitive bursaries are available through the Centre for European and International Studies Research, and in recent years students have also been successful in securing Arts and Humanities Research Council funding.

During the first phase of their studies, if they have not already undertaken a research-preparation Masters, students pursue a tailored research training programme in which students develop and refine the empirical, analytical and theoretical tools that enable them to establish the foundations of their thesis. After this phase, students focus fully on their thesis, under the specialist guidance of a Director of Studies, and the support of a supervisory team.

Throughout their registration, students are encouraged to participate in the thriving post-graduate culture provided by the Centre for European and International Studies Research. As well as regular socialising and support from other post-graduates, the Centre provides research seminars, a programme of research lectures from distinguished guest speakers, and opportunities to develop students’ own presentation skills in post-graduate seminars and study-days.

In recent years, students have undertaken PhDs in History in areas including women’s suffrage biography, cinema history, the urban history of citizenship, Irish diaspora studies, the culture of suffragette marketing, military nursing in the English Civil War, Catholics in the armed forces, military engineering education, and gender and maternity provision.

The History subject team can offer MPhil/PhD supervision in the following areas:

  • Economic and Social Developments at Local and Regional Level 1700-1850.
  • Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Politics
  • Football and European Societies in the twentieth century
  • French Revolution: political, social, cultural histories
  • Gender and Politics, c. 1750-1850
  • Gender and socialist/labour history
  • Gender and warfare in 20C Britain
  • Gender and technological change in 20C Britain
  • German Democratic Republic: Culture, Politics and Society
  • Interdisciplinarity and historiography
  • Maritime, Military and Naval Topics, 1600-1900
  • Oral history/ collective memory
  • Popular Culture and Belief in Early Modern Europe
  • Popular Culture in Britain 1850-1945
  • ‘Race’ and Politics, c. 1900-1960
  • ‘Racial’ Science in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
  • Sexuality in Britain from 1880
  • Sport and Imperialism
  • Sport and International Migration
  • Urban and Regional History
  • Women in Britain since 1880
  • Working class women’s lives and cultures