Year 1
In your first year, you will take a number of compulsory modules offered by the Department of History and Department of Anthropology, as below.
Year 1 compulsory modules |
Module title |
Credits |
|
Reading and Writing History
Reading and Writing History
15 Credits
This module provides guidance on how to develop and perfect the skills students need to write an undergraduate-level history essay. An emphasis is put on the centrality of problem solving and critical thinking, demonstrating how essays should be used as vehicles to explore academic debates. Students learn skills specific to the discipline of history, such as identifying primary and secondary sources, evaluating their suitability and analyzing them to answer historical questions, as well as those necessary for academic work in other disciplines and for employment, including relevant referencing techniques, planning to meet deadlines, analyzing data, making a clear argument, using relevant technologies in research and presentation of data, working in groups and making oral presentations.
For deep learning to take place, students practice the skills they have learnt by completing a series of structured tasks that contribute to a summative essay engaging with a specific historical problem. They will receive feedback on each stage of the process, enabling them to develop and improve their skills. The module is taught with a narrow focus on the lived experience of a defined group of people during a specified historical period (for example the working life of South and East Londoners in the mid-Nineteenth Century) depending on the expertise of the member of staff running the module. Some sessions concentrate on the knowledge required, others on how to apply this knowledge to solve a given historical question.
The module also provides specific guidance on the preparation for history examinations.
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15 Credits |
|
Historical Perspectives
Historical Perspectives
15 credits
Historical Perspectives introduces and explores ‘historiography’, this being the history of the study of the past and the writing of history. Spanning a period from the Renaissance to the present day, the module examines key methods, theories, approaches, and writers so as to provide an introduction and orientation to the development and evolution of academic history.
As academic history continues to develop, topics on the module will be updated in line with new perspectives. Core topics will be from a selection of the following:
- Antiquarian and Humanist approaches to history
- Leopold Ranke and ‘Rankean’ ideas about history
- Historical Materialism and Marxist interpretations of history
- Annales school techniques such as ‘Total History’ and ‘Microhistory’
- Gender as a category of historical analysis
- Sexualities as an area of historical research
- Post-colonial and non-colonial histories
- Global History and challenges to Eurocentricity
- Postmodernism and ‘truth’ in history
- The History of Medicine and Medical Humanities
- The History of Emotions
- Black British History
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15 credits |
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Introduction to Social Anthropology
Introduction to Social Anthropology
30 credits
The aim of this module is to acquaint you with the main bodies of theory within social anthropology and the classical sub-fields within the discipline (political anthropology, economic anthropology, anthropology of religion and kinship) and key debates within the discipline. The module begins by locating the discipline in a historical perspective before proceeding to an exploration of key theories and central themes within the discipline. Although the lectures will draw heavily on what might be considered classical texts in anthropology, which will often mean that the literature dates from the early or mid-20th century and sometimes from the 19th century or earlier, the emphasis will be on the exploring ways in which these keys areas of work within the discipline might inform our understanding of contemporary issues and problems.
As the module progresses you will hopefully gain a growing sense of what social anthropology is and feel more confident to enter discussion concerning the kinds of questions it asks. Reflecting this gradual build-up of confidence and understanding, the essay assignment for the first term has been broken down into two distinct yet related stages.
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30 credits |
|
Anthropological Methods
Anthropological Methods
15 credits
Anthropological Methods is an introduction to practices of ethnographic research. The module examines the relationship between theory and method within anthropology. We are concerned with the specific techniques that are used by anthropologists as they conduct their fieldwork. This module also draws attention to how ethnographic knowledge produced during fieldwork is both relational and contextual. We therefore consider certain historical conjectures and power dynamics that have contributed to the way ethnography is (perhaps at times rather paradoxically) at once defined as a product and perceived as a process. To this end, the module explores the epistemological and ethical foundations of anthropological methods in order to encourage you to think about fieldwork as an encounter and ethnography as the relation between anthropological practice and theory.
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15 credits |
You will also study one of the following modules, as well as one option module of your choice from a list approved annually by the Department of History.
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Module title |
Credits |
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Global Connections: the violence and exchanges that shaped the modern world
Global Connections: the violence and exchanges that shaped the modern world
30 credits
This module explores the multiplicity of contacts which have shaped the last half millennium of global history. Empire and religion, commerce and colonialism, race and space, and disease and healing all drove and moulded the encounters between distant cultures that created our modern world. This module explores some of these global connections, from trade and the exchange of goods and ideas, to practices of violence and resistance. The module will introduce students to core and emerging debates and approaches within the field of global history.
The module will contain five four-week blocks on various topics within modern global history. The History department will publish a list of five blocks each year, from at least the following:
- Germany’s African Road to the Holocaust
- Global Sports and the African Diaspora
- The Ottoman Empire in European History
- (De)Colonising Enlightenment Political Thought
- Mosquitos, Microbes and Empire
- Latin America and the World Market
- Travellers, Stories, Materials and Knowledges across Eurasia
- Colonialism, Anti-colonialism and Resistance in the Middle East and North Africa
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30 credits |
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or |
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Historical Controversies
Historical Controversies
30 credits
This module introduces students to a range of historical controversies in order to engage them in a critical manner with competing perspectives on a range of different issues and events. The module will contain six three-week blocks on various sub-disciplines within history, including, social, cultural and political history, across different periods and geographic areas. Throughout, it will focus on work on historiography, considering issues such as: the influence of issues contemporary to authors on their writing; the impact of authors’ politics and/or wider values system on their work; the evolution of controversies over time; and theoretical explanations of controversies. In addition, it will take a comparative approach to controversies, with student assessment including an option to compare two historical controversies or to analyse one controversy in more depth. Lectures and seminars at the beginning and end of the module, and at the point of handover from one block to another, will discuss comparative themes. The History Department will publish a list of six blocks each year, from at least the following:
- Acts, Identities and the Origins of Homosexuality
- The Causes of the Russian Revolution
- The Greatest Whodunit in History: Who Caused the First World War?
- The Decline of the Liberal Party in the UK and the Rise of Labour
- Guilty Men? British Appeasement Policy and the Causes of the Second World War in Europe.
- The Ballot or the Bullet? Civil Disobedience in 1960s Protest Movements
- Revolutionary Movements in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s
- Fire in Babylon: The New Cross Fire and the Black People’s Day of Action
- The Unnatural Disaster of Hurricane Katrina
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30 credits |
Year 2
In your second year, you will choose two of the modules below to a total of 30 credits.
You will also select 90 credits of year 2 modules approved annually by the Department of History. Up to 30 credits of this may be a related studies module offered by another Goldsmiths Department, and 30 credits can be a Univesity of London intercollegiate Group II module.
Year 2 compulsory modules |
Module title |
Credits |
|
Anthropology and the Visual 1
Anthropology and the Visual 1
15 credits
This module introduces you to different anthropological approaches to visual and material culture and gives you the opportunity to conduct a piece of visually oriented anthropological research.
The module provides a critical introduction to the many ways anthropologists engage with the visual from their use of visual methodologies and analysis of representations to their ethnographic study of everyday visual forms. Focusing on a wide range of visual media from photography, museum exhibitions and popular representations on TV to dress, body art, architecture and other everyday visual and material forms, the module raises issues about the significance of visibility, the politics of representation, the social life of visual and material forms and the relationship between seeing and other senses.
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15 credits |
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Anthropology of Religion
Anthropology of Religion
15 credits
This module introduces the fascinating domain of the anthropology of religion: a vast and wide ranging subject. It introduces some of the many ways anthropologists have approached religious phenomena and highlights what is unique about anthropology’s contribution to the understanding of religion. It raises questions concerning what counts as ‘religious’ and includes within the remit of the module consideration of a variety of non-human agents (gods, God, spirits, witches) and religious practices (meditation, worship, performances).
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15 credits |
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Anthropology and Political Economy
Anthropology and Political Economy
15 credits
The course offers an in-depth and critical anthropological analysis of western political economy through a Marxian and post-colonial framework. Combining historical contextualization and anthropological comparison, the course develops not only an historical materialist and cultural critique of western capitalism, but also a space of hope and prefiguration of post-capitalist life.
Overview of the module content:
To introduce you to the core concepts and theories relating to economic and political organisations and the problem of accounting for change, both empirically and theoretically.
To familiarise you with a number of empirical contexts in order that you may be able to conceptualise the complex socio-economic processes that are affecting the peripheral areas that have long been the concern of anthropologists.
To explore a number of contemporary problems relating to such issues as the apparent contradiction between local or national autonomy and globalisation that do not fit easily into definitions of the "economic" or "political".
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15 credits |
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Ethnography of a Selected Region 1
Ethnography of a Selected Region 1
15 credits
The module introduces the ethnography of a selected region, highlighting the anthropological theories informing this ethnography. Central themes are the creation of societies, communities, cultures and identities in response to colonialism and to contemporary opportunities and constraints, and the significance of the study of culture-building for changing ethnographic approaches and anthropology. In this way, students will be able to make links with wider anthropological debates about the construction of society, changes in ethnographic research and the relationship between anthropology and its subjects.
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15 credits |
Year 3
In your third year, you have the option to take a more History-orientated or Anthropology-orientated approach, depending on whether you choose a History Special Subject (with dissertation) or a linked History-Anthropology dissertation.
You will take 15 of modules from a list approved annually by the Department of Anthropology.
You may then take one of the following approaches:
- One 60 credit specialist subject module, which can be within the Goldsmiths Department of History or a University of London Intercollegiate Group III special subject module. You also take 30 credits of History modules, or a 15 credit History module and 15 credit Anthropology module.
OR
- A 30 credit linking dissertation supervised jointly by the departments of History and Anthropology, and 60 credits of History modules, one of which may be an Anthropology module.
You will also take the compulsory module listed below.
Any Special Subject History module you choose may be from a wide range of subjects offered not only at Goldsmiths but also by history departments throughout the University of London.
Year 3 compulsory modules |
Module title |
Credits |
|
Anthropological Approaches to History
Anthropological Approaches to History
15 credits
This module explores the friction and common ground between History and Anthropology. In order to understand this productive but spirited dialogue, we historicise their relationship and overlapping but divergent theoretical perspectives and methods. Modern social anthropology was formed in the early twentieth century by a rejection of evolutionism and its replacement by synchronic site-specific studies, a move that effectively eclipsed history’s theoretical significance to the discipline. Yet, dissatisfaction with the ways in which synchronic functionalist ethnographic analyses ignored history and social change brought about lasting debates about continuity and rupture; the relation between pasts, presents and futures, and the wider humanistic turn of both disciplines under the theoretical influence of Marxism, feminism, and other critical social theory since the 1960s. This module is, in many ways, an examination of the possibilities of a historicised anthropology and poses several intertwined empirical and theoretical questions about the place of structure and agency, consciousness and historicity, and memory and silences within ethnography. Through historical ethnographies and selected social historiography, we aim to understand not only how to approach the past anthropologically, but also grasp ethnographically the uses of history as a collectivist political project implicated in nationalism, racist ideology, and categories like world heritage.
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15 credits |
Teaching style
The programme is cumulative and progressive, with knowledge and skills building on previous years and growing year on year. Basic skills and competencies are delivered in the first year which sets the broad agenda for the programme as a whole. In the second year, the modules contain increasingly challenging and demanding material which provides the foundations for the significant independent scholarly work required and undertaken in the final year.
Teaching may be delivered in the form of lectures and seminars or other forms of contact time such as extended seminars, workshops, field trips, and film screenings. Lectures introduce subject specific skills and understandings and provide the basis for discussions, activities, group work, and debates. Seminars linked to lectures provide a space for further exploration of the lecture topics and materials and they reinforce the knowledge gained from the lectures and from independent reading and studying. Seminars also involve field-trips and site visits to relevant places including museums, galleries, archives, and sites of historical interest.
Throughout the programme students are taught to critically engage with the inter-relationship between history and anthropology. In the final year, this interdisciplinary knowledge, understanding, skill, and experience is tested through the compulsory interdisciplinary linking dissertation project. The variety of theoretical and empirical material throughout the programme, covering a wide range of topics, periods and regions, provides students with the opportunity to pursue their own interests while examining and interrogating the linkages between the two disciplines. Under close co-supervision from both departments, students develop a substantial and sustained individual project in which they form and present their own critical arguments in an extended format. In the context of this joint degree, students are required to produce a genuinely interdisciplinary piece of work that reflect their abilities to analyse and assess historical evidence, their awareness of anthropological methods and concepts, and a knowledge of relevant empirical work and debates in each discipline.
Lecturers also make themselves available for tutorials either during their Consultation and Feedback hours or by appointment. These provide opportunities to ask questions about modules and their content, to receive support and guidance on independent work, and to receive feedback on submitted work.
The following information gives an indication of the typical proportions of learning and teaching for each year of this programme*:
- Year 1 - 15% scheduled learning, 85% independent learning
- Year 2 - 13% scheduled learning, 87% independent learning
- Year 3 - 15% scheduled learning, 85% independent learning
How you’ll be assessed
A wide and innovative variety of different methods are used to assess learning, these include essays, reviews, source analyses, blogs, videos, walks, presentations, exams, and dissertations. Some modules are assessed by portfolios of coursework, or by a combination of coursework and an examination. Others are assessed by long essays or dissertations on topics approved with the tutor. Assessments vary in length according to the type of assessment and/or level of module.
Assessment supports student progression across the programme, as assessments in the first year aim to measure a set of baseline skills and competencies which are enhanced, deepened and broadened in subsequent years. Lecturers return assessments and provide useful and constructive feedback in a timely manner so as to ensure that students learn from the feedback and have the opportunity to improve subsequent work.
The following information gives an indication of how you can typically expect to be assessed on each year of this programme*:
- Year 1 - 44% coursework, 56% written exam
- Year 2 - 88% coursework, 13% written exam
- Year 3 - 100% coursework
*Please note that these are averages are based on enrolments for 2019/20. Each student’s time in teaching, learning and assessment activities will differ based on individual module choices. Find out more about .
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 modules in the first year, Level 5 in the second, and Level 6 modules in your final year. A standard module is worth 30 credits. Some programmes also contain 15-credit half modules or can be made up of higher-value parts, such as a dissertation or a Major Project.
Download the programme specification. If you would like an earlier version of the programme specification, please contact the Quality Office.
Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.