Courses and structure

Credits and levels of learning

An undergraduate honours degree is made up of 360 credits – 120 at Level 4, 120 at Level 5 and 120 at Level 6. If you are a full-time student, you will usually take Level 4 courses in the first year, Level 5 in the second, and Level 6 courses in your final year. A standard course is worth 30 credits. Some programmes also contain 15-credit half courses or can be made up of higher-value parts, such as a dissertation or a Major Project.

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Level 4

You take the following courses:

• Introduction to Social Anthropology (30 credits)
• Anthropological Methods (15 credits)
• Ethnography of a Selected Region (15 credits)
• Two first year 30-credit History courses

Anthropology course descriptions

History course descriptions

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Level 5

You take three Anthropology courses:

• Anthropology of Religion (15 credits)
• Anthropology and the Visual (15 credits)
• Politics, Economics and Social Change (30 credits)

You also take 60 credits' worth of courses in History from an approved list, 30 credits of which may be a Group 2 course. Click here for the courses currently offered by the Department of History.

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Level 6

During your third year you take:

• An individual project that consists of independent, interdisciplinary study supervised by staff from both departments. Assessment by: dissertation
• Anthropology and History (linking course)
• A choice of History and Anthropology options

You may choose to take a Special Subject History course from a wide range of subjects offered not only at Goldsmiths but also by history departments throughout the University of London. Special Subject courses offer in-depth study using original historical sources. See the list of Level 6 courses from History and information on Special Subjects here.

In addition to the individual project and Anthropology and History course, you can choose to do a combination of option courses from both Departments to the value of 75 credits.

Skills and careers

Degrees in history and combined subjects develop your critical and analytical skills, your ability to express ideas clearly and your expertise in gathering insights from a range of subjects. Historical research enables you to gather and select from a range of materials – literary and visual. It teaches you to write with imagination and clarity.

Former students have forged careers in journalism and the media, museums and galleries, the Civil Service, teaching and research, law and the commercial world, but the skills learned are also applicable to many more industries and roles.

According to data collated by Unistats, the definitive UK university guide and part of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Goldsmiths is in the top three higher education institutions for highest-paid jobs for History undergraduates.

• Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths
• Our alumni

About the departments

History

 

The Department of History provides a distinctive and intellectually challenging environment for undergraduate study with internationally renowned scholars and a flourishing research culture. We foster enthusiasm for the study of history by focusing on encounters and exploration, ideas and identities.

Our emphasis on encounters addresses the interplay of religious, political and cultural differences across time and place. We use innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to encourage the exploration of issues, controversies, and themes, rather than chronological periods. By examining the development of ideas and identities, we draw upon the past to illuminate the conflicts and challenges of modern life.

History at Goldsmiths nurtures intellectual curiosity and independent critical thinking. We offer flexible and challenging programmes of study at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, featuring carefully developed teaching informed by cutting- edge research. The geographical range of our courses includes Asia, Africa, Eastern and Western Europe.

Our graduates have gone on to pursue careers in commerce and industry, central and local government, research and teaching, museums and galleries, law, journalism and the media.

Different areas of specialisation at teaching and research levels include:

• Modern Italian labour history and politics
• Early modern Germany, especially urban and religious history
• Modern history of the Balkans
• 20th century British and Irish history
• Early modern religion, ideas, politics, and popular culture
• Medieval history, gender power politics, crusades and ethnicity
• Social and cultural history of contemporary southern Africa
• Nineteenth century British dress, death, poverty, gender, philanthropy
• Cultural history of the early modern Mediterranean, Venice and its empire, early modern visual culture
• Various aspects of the history of Asian medicine and interactions between medicine and religion

Teaching

Courses are delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops. Our staff are drawn from a wide range of professional and educational backgrounds, which provides a diverse and rewarding educational experience and creates a broad research profile. Further information on staff is available on page 26.

Applicant days

The department also holds applicant days in early December, mid-February and late March. These are for prospective students holding an offer to study either single honours in history or one of our joint degree programmes.

Applicant days give you the chance to see Goldsmiths and the department, meet staff and students, and hear and participate in sample lectures, as well as to ask questions about the degree programmes and courses, student accommodation and finance. Please contact history@gold.ac.uk for more information.

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Anthropology

 

Why study Anthropology at Goldsmiths?

• Anthropology at Goldsmiths is an exciting, multi-disciplinary department, with specialists in a variety of areas of research not undertaken in other Anthropology departments in the UK or abroad.
• We are one of the most consistently innovative departments in Britain. Instrumental in the development of new fields and directions in the discipline, the department continues to be at the forefront of a number of areas, including visual anthropology, medical anthropology, the anthropology of development and rights, cultural politics, political economy, and the anthropology of media.
• Anthropology at Goldsmiths has above all a contemporary orientation, and contributes both to the development of the academic discipline and to the world outside it, through policy- oriented research and advocacy in a range of areas. What you learn in the classroom will be relevant in a variety of public domains – in Britain and elsewhere – as all of our teaching refers to relevant contemporary social issues.
• The department currently has 16 permanent members of teaching staff and three administrative staff. We have a large group of visiting tutors, and several research fellows working on a range of projects funded by bodies such as the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, European Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the British Academy. We have approximately 250 undergraduate students, plus 80 Masters and 40 research postgraduate students.
• We also have close links with other departments and research centres at Goldsmiths, including the Centre for Cultural Studies, the Centre for Urban and Community Research, the Centre for Balkan Studies, Sociology, Psychology, History, and Media and Communications, and the Community and Youth Work section of the Department of Professional and Community Education.
• As a part of the University of London, Goldsmiths’ students have opportunities to attend seminars and courses throughout the University’s colleges and institutions, and can make use of the excellent library facilities at Senate House and fellow colleges.

We have wide ranging research links with other institutions, including:

Institute for the Study of the Americas; Institute of Commonwealth Studies; Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London; Royal Anthropological Institute; Imperial College School of Medicine; British Museum; National Maritime Museum; Horniman Museum; CNRS (in Paris); Federal University of Penambuco, Brazil; University of Nairobi; Medical Anthropology Unit at the School of Medicine, University of Oslo; Department of Sociology, University of Dar es Salaam; Department of Anthropology, University of Madras; Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany; Centre for Women’s and Gender Research, Bergen; IDES (Instituto de Desarrollo Economico y Social), Buenos Aires; University of Brasilia; University of Bologna; Comenius University, Bratislava; University of Barcelona, University of Bucharest, and the Institute for Ethnic Studies, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Our areas of specialisation include: the environment, peasantries, post-socialism, kinship, gender, animals, medicine health and the body, anthropology of science and biotechnology, visual anthropology, development and rights, representation, material and popular culture, cultural politics, neo-colonialisms, postcolonialisms, and history.

Staff research interests cover many geographical regions including Latin America, North America, Africa, the Pacific, Asia, and Europe, including Britain. Please see page 19 for details of staff and their interests.

Open days

We welcome prospective students, and their families and supporters, to our Open Days, which showcase all the university departments and the programmes they offer, as well as general information on student life and learning at Goldsmiths.

These are held three times a year in the spring, summer and autumn and also enable visitors to tour Goldsmiths’ campus and its extensive facilities. Find out dates and book your place online.

Student profiles

"What caught my eye when looking through the course selection in the Goldsmiths prospectus was the incredible diversity of courses offered, and the great focus on culture and ideas, rather than stiff-upper-lip traditional approaches to history.

With a wide range of interesting courses to choose from in the different departments, great support from both tutors and student mentors, and – most importantly – high class teaching, this has been a great experience."

Ingrid, BA History & Anthropology 

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"I chose Goldsmiths because it offers a joint degree in anthropology and history, the one focusing on small-scale indigenous societies, the other on societies with a greater written history. I am finding both subjects fascinating and complementary.

The lectures act as a stimulus, the seminars an opportunity to discuss. Both the tutors and the students are friendly and helpful, and I look forward to going to Goldsmiths each week."

Jane, BA History & Anthropology