MA Environmental History

Institution University of Nottingham
Method At the institution
Location Nottingham
Type Masters
Course fee By request

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MA Environmental History

Objectives The MA in Environmental History allows you to explore ‘the Environment’ in History, focusing on how people have shaped ‘natural’ environments over time, and developed their ideas about and attitudes towards Nature, landscape, urban areas and the countryside. It draws on Nottingham’s unique cross-disciplinary expertise in History, Geography and related disciplines, to provide an exciting and rewarding experience for you, the student. Environmental historians explore the historic changing relationship between Nature and People. Historical research is needed more than ever in a modern world facing numerous environmental challenges; it has a key role to play in environmental policy making if we are to avoid mistakes and misunderstandings. Here at Nottingham, your studies will be grounded in a range of historical methodologies dealing with theory and evidence in the humanities and social sciences, cutting across generic and chronological divides in order to analyse the common challenges which all historians face, including those working on environmental issues.
Entry requirements This course has been designed for students with a background in History, Geography and related disciplines. It appeals to students from a wide range of backgrounds and offers a number of flexible study options.
Academic title MA Environmental History
Course description Key facts

-Environmental History has enormous reach as an area of academic study and is currently one of the most vibrant and exciting areas of historical study across the globe.
-Nottingham’s School of History is one of the few places in the UK to run a postgraduate programme in Environmental History.
-This course gives you the opportunity to join a long-established field trip to Liguria in north-western Italy to experience personally how ecology, conservation and management issues really matter to the inhabitants of Varese Ligure, a small town in the area

Course Content

This course enables you to engage in your own research within an explicitly multidisciplinary programme.

You will be able to study different regions and cover a broad chronological sweep. In fact, you will have many exciting opportunities to study the Environmental History of the British Isles – including the cultural geography of the English landscape and
changing notions of landscape and Englishness – as well as the possibility of researching the Nature and People in Scotland.

Study of other societies is encouraged, including the USA, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Alongside the core compulsory modules, you will be able to choose optional modules from a range in the Schools of History, Geography, Art History, American and Canadian Studies, Archaeology and the Business School.

You will be encouraged to take subjects outside of History in order to set your studies against a contemporary context. Typical optional modules might therefore include:

-Historical and Cultural Geography
-Environmental Geography
-Environmental Management and Sustainability
-Sustainable Tourism
-Ecology and Nature Conservation.

Please note that all module details are subject to change.

This course gives you the opportunity to join a long-established field trip to Liguria in north-western Italy to experience personally how ecology, conservation and management issues really matter to the inhabitants of Varese Ligure, a small town in the area.

Equally, you may wish to study urban history – a growing part of environmental history research worldwide – with one of the School’s urban historians.

One of the most exciting features of this course is the opportunity of designing an original piece of Environmental History research through a supervised dissertation.

Course Structure

This course may be taken full-time over 1 year (September to September) or part-time over 2 to 3 years.

It is also possible to take the taught components of this course without completing the dissertation in order to attain the award of Postgraduate Diploma in Environmental History.

Your dissertation will be supervised by a member of staff with relevant research expertise and may be researched in archives, the landscape or using oral history techniques.