Postgraduate Students

Taught courses

You will take several courses across two semesters of teaching, including two compulsory courses and a range of optional courses.

Core courses

There are two required core courses for this programme: two history skills training courses (20 credits each), one in each semester, which are taken by all MSc students in History in the school.

The compulsory courses for this programme are:

Course name   Credits
Historical Research: Skills and Sources 20
Historical Methodology 20

Optional courses     

You will choose a further 80 credits from a wide selection of optional courses, subject to availability. 

Option Courses 2024-2025

* * Please note that the list of courses below is provisional and subject to change.  

Select between 40 and 80 credits of the following Contemporary History courses.

Course name    Credits  
An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s 20
Black Activism in Britain since 1800 20
Cinema and Society in England and Scotland 20
Cinema and Society in South Asia, 1947-Present 20

Conservatism in the United States, c.1930-c.1990

20
Contemporary Scotland 20
Gender, Crime and Deviancy: Scotland and England c. 1860-1960 20

Genocide in Contemporary History

20
Global Environmental History 20
The Civil Rights Movement 20
The Cold War in Latin America 20

The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present)

20

The United States and the Cold War

20

Select between 0 and 40 credits of the following History courses

Course name Credits
An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s 20
Black Activism in Britain since 1800 20
Cinema and Society in England and Scotland 20
Cinema and Society in South Asia, 1947-Present 20
Conservatism in the United States, c.1930-c.1990 20
Constantinople: The History of a Medieval Megalopolis from Constantine the Great to Suleyman the Magnificent 20
Contemporary Scotland 20
Economic and Social Theory for Historical Analysis 20
Gender, Crime and Deviancy: Scotland and England c. 1860-1960 20
Genocide in Contemporary History 20
Global Environmental History 20
Intellectual History of the American Revolution 20
Making Histories: Theories and Practices in Writing History 20
Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages 20
Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland 20
Race, Religion, and Ridicule: The American South from Reconstruction to World War I 20
Saints Cults, Pilgrimage and Piety in Scotland 20
Scottish Reformation Culture, c. 1540-c. 1640 20
The Civil Rights Movement 20
The Cold War in Latin America 20
The European Enlightenments, 1670 - 1820 20
The Future of the Past? Doing History in the Digital Era 20
The Global Renaissance 20
The Medieval Indian Ocean: Climates, Communities and Commodities 20
The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present) 20
The United States and the Cold War 20
Thinking with Things: History and Material Culture Studies 20

Select between 0 and 20 credits of the following online courses

Course name Credits
British Empires, 1601-1948 (online) 20
Debating Marriage Between Antiquity and the Middle Ages (online) 20
Gender, Empire, and Labour in the Nineteenth Century: Perspectives from the Wider World (online) 20
Myth and the History of Scholarship in Early Modern Europe (online) 20
Race, Religion, and Ridicule: The American South from Reconstruction to World War I (online) 20
The Closest of Enemies: Cuban-American Relations 1898-2014 (online) 20
The Contemporary Theory of War (online) 20
The Holocaust (online) 20
The Lords of the Isles: Clan Donald, c.1336 - c.1545 (online) 20
Theories of Empire in the Early Modern Period (online) 20

Courses for those studying from September 2025 will be available from April 2025.

Teaching and assessment

You will take a variety of seminar-style courses in small groups.

Most courses are assessed by means of an extended piece of written work, while some courses assess non-written skills. 

Further information

You can see more details about the 2024/25 programme structure on the Degree Programme Table for the MSc in Contemporary History. We expect the 2025/26 programme structure to be available from May 2025.