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Top reasons to choose this course

• History that speaks to the present Study contemporary histories that help you understand today’s politics, culture and social change, including fascism and anti-fascism, colonialism and empire, migration and race, and the history of sexuality and gender.

• Hands-on history workshop modules Go beyond essays by working in archives to create original historical research, shaping your own projects from the ground up and learning how historians produce new knowledge.

• Inclusive, student-centred learning Our teaching and assessment are designed so different kinds of learners can thrive. You’ll experience a mix of lectures, small-group seminars, workshops and creative assessment, supporting a wide range of learning styles and strengths.

• Creative and real-world assessment Develop practical communication skills through podcasts, films and social media campaigns, alongside essays and source analysis, learning how to share ideas with wider audiences.

• Interdisciplinary study Shape your degree around your interests by taking option modules from across the humanities and social sciences, including art and fashion history, literature and creative writing, and politics and philosophy.

• Expert, research-active teaching Learn with contemporary historians whose research informs their teaching and who are committed to helping students make meaningful connections between past and present.

• Opportunities for real-world experience Take an optional community placement module and gain experience working with local organisations, charities or cultural partners. Plus you can take a placement year for extended experience.  

• Skills for life beyond your degree Graduate with strong research, critical thinking, communication and project management skills valued across a wide range of careers.

• Join an active academic community Be part of a supportive course community within the School of Humanities and Social Science, with opportunities to attend talks, events and activities through the Humanities Student Society.

Year 1 

In year 1 of the Contemporary History degree course you take six modules that help develop the skills central to your course.

Modules

• Empires: Global Power and Conflict

  In the modern world, empires used force, economic power and cultural influence to control populations beyond their borders. In this module, you’ll explore the rise of modern nations and empires, the resistance they provoked and how those subjugated by colonisation challenged claims that some peoples were born to rule. Through class discussion, you will analyse how historians interpret empire, evaluate competing historical arguments and consider how your own position shapes your understanding.

• Politics of the Past

  Why is history political? Why are contested ideas about the past central to today’s culture wars? And how should historians intervene in these debates? In this module, you’ll explore how historical narratives influence national identity, political conflict and public debate. Through case studies such as debates about statues and wartime myths, you will learn how to analyse online material and create a social media campaign that scrutinises a popular representation of the past.

• History Workshop: Places and Podcasts

  You will discover 亚洲麻豆精品在线 by exploring its streets, buildings and the lives shaped within them. You’ll learn how historians read the city as evidence, carry out a place-based research project and produce a podcast that shares a 亚洲麻豆精品在线 story with a public audience. You’ll also develop key skills in urban analysis, research, collaboration and public communication.

• Material Matters

  You will explore the characteristics, histories and values associated with different types of materials used in the creation of studio-produced or manufactured objects. You’ll also develop an appreciation of the qualities of different materials and the cultural and environmental implications of their use. Workshops will focus on specific materials, such as cotton in clothing; nitrate in photography and film; and clay and porcelain in kitchenware. The module also introduces the UN Sustainable Development Goal for Responsible Production and Consumption.

• History Workshop: Archives and Filmmaking

  亚洲麻豆精品在线’s history lives in its archives – from photographs and letters to official records and everyday historical materials. In this module, you’ll learn how to find and interpret primary sources and use them to uncover stories of the city. You’ll gain practical skills in archival research and filmmaking, then work in a small group to produce a short film. This will help you develop transferable skills in teamwork, research and creative digital production.

• Revolutions: The Ideas that made the Modern World

  Ideas can spark revolutions, justify oppression or inspire new forms of freedom. This module explores the concepts that shaped the modern world – from liberty and democracy to capitalism, race and gender. You will investigate how ideas cause or influence major historical developments and how historians debate their impact. Through case studies and discussion, you will build confidence in analysing concepts, understanding causation and explaining how intellectual change shapes the world.

Female resistance fighters in the Second World War

Year 2

In Year 2, you’ll develop greater depth and confidence in studying contemporary history. You’ll work closely with historians who are experts in their fields, benefiting from research-led teaching and insights into cutting-edge historical research.​ 

You’ll have greater choice to shape your degree around your interests, including the opportunity to take modules from across the humanities and social sciences.​ You can also choose to take a community placement module, working with a local not-for-profit organisation to gain practical experience and develop career-focused skills.​

Key teaching themes

• Radical Histories
  Explore the modern history of radical social and political thought and movements. You will learn how writing the histories of marginalised and forgotten groups of people poses a serious challenge to long-established hierarchies and ways of thinking.

• Politics-History-Ideology
  This examines the dominant role and effects of ideology in modern world history. You will begin with a close study of the rise and fall of European global dominance from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War. You’ll then move on to an exploration of the multi-faceted history of the Cold War.
• Race and Resistance
  What it is, how it works and how it can be contested. You will start by studying the evolving conceptualisation of ‘race’, racisms and strategies of resistance. From there you will examine the diverse histories of racism and resistance through case studies. 

Placements

Spend a year on placement

Gain valuable experience and earn money during an optional placement year following year 2. You’ll return to the final year of your degree with added confidence, real-world experience and valuable contacts. 

A placement year significantly improves your CV, giving you a distinct advantage over others when applying for jobs and starting your career. It will also help you to develop the softer skills such as communication and teamwork.

For the assessed part of your placement, you will create a reflective piece of work on professional practice and skills. 

The university has links with a wide range of organisations including in health, culture and heritage, housing, councils, the police, the probation service, policy think tanks and charities.

Our dedicated Placements and Employability team will support you in getting a placement that meets with your interests and career ambitions. They can help with CVs and cover letter writing, applications, online testing and more. Plus, they’ll provide support and guidance when you’re on placement and make sure that everything is going well.

Other placement opportunities

During your second year you can choose to take the Active Citizenship module. This is a 50-hour professional work placement at a not-for-profit organisation.

Your placement could be at a local charity, a non-governmental organisation or a community organisation. Students have taken roles at organisations including Art in Mind, Pathways to Independence and Screen Archive South East.

The university’s Active Student service will help you find the right placement opportunity, and you will be offered support in putting together your application and your CV and cover letter.

You will have fortnightly academic seminars where you reflect on the links between academic theory and practice, and on the skills you have developed on placement.

Final year

In your final year you will complete an independent dissertation on a topic of your choice. Working one-to-one with a specialist supervisor, you will design and carry out an extended piece of original historical research. This is your opportunity to develop advanced research and writing skills, work with primary sources, and graduate as an expert in a subject you care about. 

In your modules, you will develop and extend on year 2, developing a greater depth of understanding and reflection.

Key teaching themes

• Radical Histories: A History of Capitalism, its Critics and its Crises
  Explore the major mutations of capitalism in the last 200 years, from Adam Smith all the way to neoliberalism and the recent global economic crisis. At the same time you will examine the long history of anti-capitalist radical critiques and movements, focusing on specific case studies from British and global history.

• Race and Resistance: The Politics of Discrimination and Resistance
  Here you will look at ‘race’ and racialisation in relation to the language of national security and mass incarceration. Case studies include the Middle East (Israel/Palestine), Europe (the Northern Irish and British Muslim communities in Britain) and North America (‘post-racial’ racism in the United States since the 1960s).

• Politics-History-Ideology: From Pax Americana to the Ends of History
  What is the role of the US as the dominant world power? You will explore the rise of the US global dominance in through the bipolarism of the Cold War and the subsequent era of neoliberalism, examining key debates about the end of the USSR, the effect of globalisation on the world order, and the strength of US power today.

Lab facilities

Mithras House has a series of lab rooms which can be used for teaching on your course or in your independent research work.

Life lab
A skills-based lab for practice-based teaching, social work, psychotherapy and counselling, and employability. The Life lab is fitted with lounge furniture to provide a comfortable space for conducting qualitative research with larger groups. The lab can be used to conduct research activities with children of all ages and can be used for meetings and events. The room also contains a dedicated space to conduct assessed role play or interviews with children.

City lab
This is a qualitative research methods and creative methods resource for all students, staff and researchers, as well as research participants, including children, community groups and the general public. It can also be used for meetings and events. The City lab contains a kitchen, a teaching/meeting room with enhanced acoustic isolation and two meeting spaces that can be separated with a screen or combined to accommodate larger groups.

Design lab
Housing our extensive collection of historic dress and textiles, which are used in some teaching on our History of Art and Design courses, this has the space and equipment for you to work on textile projects. Displays created by students on these programmes are on view in the social spaces of the building.

Community lab
A space designed for collaborative student learning, this is used by students and staff involved in the university’s Global Challenges programme – our collective mission to contribute towards solutions to tackle the pressing issues facing our world.

Stats lab
A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab contains eight acoustically treated booths for both recording and transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research and for recording and editing podcasts.

Applied cognition lab
A dedicated research space for psychological research involving measures such as electrodermal activity (EDA) and electroencephalography (EEG). The space is designed to allow the participant and researcher to sit at separate desks whilst psychophysiological data is being collected. 

VR and eye tracking lab
The VR and Eye-Tracking Lab is used for psychological research using equipment, such as eye-trackers and virtual reality headsets. The space has adjustable lighting and a blackout blind for maintaining consistent lighting conditions during eye-tracking research, as well as sensors set up in the room to allow individuals to move freely around the room during virtual reality research.

Take a video tour of the labs with technicians Andrea and Grace 

Meet the team

Dr Rebecca Searle, course leader

Dr Rebecca Searle is a contemporary historian whose work explores how the study of the past can be used to make critical interventions in the politics of the present. Her research focuses on the history of the housing crisis, alongside expertise in the history of gender and sexuality, capitalism, and war and conflict. 

Dr Jon Watson teaches topics including the histories of racism and anti-racism in the United States, France and Britain from the nineteenth century to the present; the intersections of international politics and the national history of the United States; and on peoples’ histories ‘from below’, looking at how such sources as slave interviews, blues music and zoot suits might help us understand histories of power, marginalisation and resistance. 
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Dr Eugene Michail works on contemporary European history and he teaches on: war and resistance from the early twentieth century to today; nationalism, fascism and the modern far right; the Holocaust, genocide and mass violence; radical histories; and refugee histories.
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Dr Christian Hogsbjerg’s teaching relates the history of the African diaspora with respect to how ‘slave-powered globalisation’ shaped the Caribbean region. He has specialist research interests in the resulting struggles against racism, slavery and colonialism (including the Haitian Revolution) and ideas of ‘black internationalism’.
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Dr Vicky Margree works across cultural studies, cultural history, philosophy and literature. She has particular interests in feminist history, the Victorian period and the role of literature in contributing to social and political transformation (for example, in apartheid South Africa).
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Dr Rebecca Searle

Course fees

The course fees shown here are what you will pay for the first year of your course if you start in the academic year 2026–27 and you are studying full-time (fee amount is subject to parliamentary approval). You pay fees in each year of your course. The fees you pay may increase each year.

Regulated fees

Fees for UK students on undergraduate and some postgraduate courses are set by the UK government. These are known as regulated fees. From academic year 2026–27, regulated fees will increase annually in line with forecast inflation.

Student Finance England loans for tuition fees and maintenance will also rise in line with inflation.

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Unregulated fees

Course fees for international students taking undergraduate courses and for most postgraduate courses are not regulated by the UK government. Unregulated fees may increase each year by up to 5% or the forecast Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation (whichever is higher).

Find out more

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and (pdf) for more on 亚洲麻豆精品在线 tuition fees.
• 亚洲麻豆精品在线 Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more.

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