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Welcome to the Department of History

Goldsmiths third year History students visit the Western Front, 2012

An introduction to the Department of History at Goldsmiths

From the occult to dictators, from war to revolution, from madness to medicine, from clothes to emotions, and from the body to ideas – this is history at Goldsmiths.

For us, history isn’t just a sequence of events. We’re looking at a history that’s non-linear, a history that’s interdisciplinary and a history that’s comparative.

And our interest in material, visual and oral history means that whether we’re looking at how the First World War was remembered through Blackadder, working with schools to record veterans’ stories, understanding the past through its artists and philosophers, or researching the history of death in Africa, we adopt innovative angles to study the past – and the present.

At Goldsmiths, history is about understanding the present through the past, and the past through the present.

As a department we have a wide range of expertise covering the history of Europe, Africa and Asia from the medieval to the modern. Our focus on cultural history and our specialisms in areas including religion and society, visual and material culture, the history of ideas, and medical history, means that as a student here you’ll be able to explore how people in past societies lived, loved, worked and worshipped and delve into subjects you can’t study elsewhere.

Find out more about us.

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