Postgraduate study

I have extended my knowledge and appreciation of the discipline of history through studying for an MA. The tools I use for studying history have been honed, and I now feel more able to produce solid and valuable historical interpretations.

Michael, MA and PhD student

Durham is a leading British centre for the study of History, able to provide postgraduate teaching and research supervision provision from the early medieval to recent times, from Britain and Europe (including Russia), to America, Africa and China, and across social, cultural, gender, media, political and economic history.

We have a vibrant and successful postgraduate community.  Our students proceed to a variety of careers in academia, in academic administration and policy-making, in heritage services, in the senior civil service and in other professions.  They are active researchers, participating in and organising local, national and international conferences.  Recent and current students have won prestigious scholarships and published articles in leading academic journals or contributed to volumes of essays.

Durham is joint host, with Newcastle, of History Lab North East, the centre for the Institute of Historical Research in the north-east of England.  History Lab provides a programme of seminars and social events for postgraduates, as well as training opportunities in conjunction with the Durham and Newcastle departments. 

Durham is also part of the North East England History Institute (NEEHI), with other universities and partners, such as Beamish Museum. 

• Departmental policy on the admission of research students (last modified: 23 December 2011)

Scholarships and prizes

Alex Brown won the Postan Fellowship, administered by the Economic History Society and the Institute of Historical Research, 2012-13.

Alex Brown was one of three winners of the New Researcher Prize at the annual Economic History Society conference at St Catherine's College, Oxford, 30 March-1 April 2012, for his paper entitled: ‘Divergent Responses to Recession: Ecclesiastical Estates in Durham, c.1400-c.1600'.

Matt Greenhall (2010) won an Institute of Historical Research Junior Research Fellowship, 2009-10.

Tom Lambert (2009) won the Past and Present Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, administered by the Institute of Historical Research, in 2009-10.

Alisdair Dobie won the Basil Yamey prize for the best article in the journal, Accounting Business and Finance History, entitled 'The development of financial management and control in monastic houses and estates in England c. 1200-1540.'

Recent publications

A. T. Brown, ‘Church Leaseholders on the Dean and Chapter's Estates, 1540-1640: The Rise of a Rural Elite?', in A. G. Green and B. Crosbie (eds.), The Economy and Culture of North-East England, c.1500-1800 (forthcoming, 2013)

Nicki Kindersley, 'Identifying the South Sudanese: registration for the referendum and defining a new nationality,' in Enrico Ille and Richard Rottenburg (eds.), Institutionalization and regulation. Emerging orders in Sudan (forthcoming 2012)

Katherine Bedford, 'Fouke FitzWaryn: Outlaw or Chivalric Hero', in 'Alexander L. Kaufman (ed.), British Outlaws of Literature and History, Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Figures from Robin Hood to Twm Shon Catty (Jefferson, North Carolina, 2011).

A. T. Brown, ‘The Families Behind the Worm Tales: the Conyers and Lambtons, 1350-1640', Cleveland History, 100 (2011), pp. 99-110.

Judith Dunthorne, 'Anselm and Hugh of St Victor on Freedom and the Will', Anselm and His Legacy, eds. G.E.M. Gasper & I. Logan (2011)

Lucy Bates, 'The limits of possibility in England's Long Reformations', Historical Journal, 53 (2010), 1049-1070.

Robert Doherty, ‘“Uncertain Waters Beneath the Rainbow Arch”: The Building of the Tyne Bridge 1920-1929’, North East History, 41 (2010), pp. 43-77.

Conferences and workshops

Our postgraduates organise annual conferences for medieval, early modern and modern history chaired by a leading academic. Chairs include Professor Keith Wrightson (Yale) and Professor Rosemary Sweet (Leicester).

Currently being organised by our postgraduates:

• Annual Postgraduate Discussion Group Conference, 23 May 2013
• 'Coping with Crisis: Re-evaluating the role of crises in economic and social history', 26-28 July 2013

Previous conferences organised by our postgraduates:

• African Agricultural Development: Historical Perspectives, 13-14 April 2013
• 'Discussion Group Conference: Is history repeating itself? Continuity and change since 1600', May 2012
• 'Time and Memory in the Middle Ages and Renaissance', July 2010, jointly organised by postgraduates from History, Archaeology, English and Modern Languages and Cultures.
• 'The Body on Display, from Renaissance to Enlightenment', July 2010, funded by the Society for the Social History of Medicine.