Module overview
The culmination of your history degree at Southampton will be the completion of your final year independent research dissertation (HIST3021 for History programmes or HIST3210 for Ancient History programmes). In this module you will learn how to apply the analytical and research expertise that you have been developing through your degree to your own individual research project and its conceptual framework. You will choose from a series of workshops according to the broad areas of historical interest that will inform your dissertation, chronological, geographical and thematic. You will work as a member of a group with a specialist workshop leader for each of the interest areas to explore the key literature and historiographical developments relevant to your field. You will be expected to engage critically with influential texts and you will be asked to review one of these texts for the first assessment. Your discussions will enable you to understand how the writing of history needs to be historicized and in particular to consider how this relates to the subject area that you intend to investigate in your dissertation. You will receive feedback on your research project through a presentation and a historiographical essay. The module is supported by a wide range of lectures and online materials; you are encouraged to engage widely with all the resources on offer to learn about the research process and how to be an historian, but you will also be able to identify and concentrate on those areas that will be most pertinent to your own research project.