THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

Information in the Degree Programme Tables may still be subject to change in response to Covid-19

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of History, Classics and Archaeology : Postgraduate (History, Classics and Archaeology)

Postgraduate Course: Professional Skills for Historians (PGHC12002)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of History, Classics and Archaeology CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 12 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits0 ECTS Credits0
SummaryThis course introduces PhD students to the skills needed to conduct and disseminate historical research at the professional level. The course will introduce students to the historical profession and prepare them - in practical as well as intellectual ways - to work on their own dissertation projects. By the end of the semester, students should have a good idea of what professional historians do, and should be prepared to start doing it themselves.
Course description Designed for first-year PhD students, the course introduces and develops the key professional skills necessary for writing history and being a historian. Topics may include the art of literary presentation, the practicalities of getting published, other forms of dissemination, such as conference presentations and engagement with social media, and the broader context in which professional history is produced, such as debates around ethical concerns, knowledge exchange, and the process of applying for jobs in history.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2021/22, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  0
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Please contact the School directly for a breakdown of Learning and Teaching Activities
Assessment (Further Info) Please contact the School directly for a breakdown of Assessment Methods
Additional Information (Assessment) There is no summative assessment for this course
Feedback Not entered
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. demonstrate an ability to understand and apply specialised research or professional skills, techniques and practices considered in the course
  2. demonstrate originality and independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers; and a considerable degree of autonomy
Reading List
Oliver Daddow, 'The Ideology of Apathy: Historians and Postmodernism', Rethinking History, 8:3 (2004), 437-57

Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History (London: Granta, 2000), esp. introduction and ch.1.

Eric Foner, Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (New York: Hill & Wang, 2003), preface and ch.1

Francis Haskell, History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)

Eric Hobsbawm, On History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1997)

Richard Howells and Robert Matson, Using Visual Evidence (London: Open University Press, 2009)

Lynn Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)

Kelley, Donald R., Frontiers of History: Historical Inquiry in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)

Iggers, Georg, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1997)

Jordanova, Ludmilla, History in Practice, 2nd edn (London: Hodder Arnold, 2008)

Arnaldo Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)

Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: Objectivity and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr David Silkenat
Tel: (0131 6)50 4614
Email: David.Silkenat@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMs Cristina Roman
Tel: (0131 6)50 4577
Email: Cristina.Roman@ed.ac.uk
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