MSt Global & Imperial History - Course Handbook

Introduction

Disclaimer

The information in this handbook is accurate as at October 1st 2024. Although it may be necessary for changes to be made in certain circumstances, as explained at www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/coursechanges, it is hoped to keep such changes to a minimum. If changes are made the faculty will publish a new version of this handbook together with a list of the changes and students will be informed.

The Examination Regulations relating to this course are available at https://examregs.admin.ox.ac.uk/ or Appendix 2 below.

If you have any concerns or queries please contact the Graduate Office at graduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk .

This handbook has been prepared this for students starting the Master of Studies (MSt) in Global and Imperial History in Michaelmas Term 2023. We hope that it will be particularly useful to you when you first arrive in Oxford, but you are advised to refer to it throughout your course, as it will be of considerable help throughout the period of your study.

It contains information about the structure of the course, teaching and assessment deadlines, how to format and submit your work, and the exam conventions that set out how your work is marked. It also acts as a signpost to more general information, including useful contacts and locations around the Faculty and university.

To note that you are required to complete an online course on plagiarism and how to avoid it. On successfully completing this course you will receive a certificate, which you should email to graduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk by the end of Week 1 Michaelmas term.

Introductory events often take place during Week 0 of Michaelmas Term.

The term dates can be found here: Dates of Term | University of Oxford

Other sources of information about your course

As well as this handbook, you will also find these other sources of information useful:

The Global & Imperial History Canvas page: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/13949	To find information about your course, such as reading lists and available options.
The Oxford Historians Hub: https://ohh.web.ox.ac.uk/	To find information on studying history at Oxford, the termly lecture list, details of the Oxford History Graduate Network, how to present your work when submitting it, and other general information relating to your studies.
Examination regulations: https://examregs.admin.ox.ac.uk/.	The definitive rules that govern the course.
Marking criteria and conventions in this handbook	The rules by which your work is marked.

Your supervisor will review, monitor and comment on your academic progress using Graduate Supervision Reporting (GSR), which is accessible via Student Self Service (https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/selfservice). You are also encouraged to submit comments on this system.

An introduction to Oxford for new students is available on the university website: https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/new.

Useful Contacts

This programme is convened and administered by the Faculty of History. If you need help or advice relating to your course, and can’t find the answer in this handbook or on Canvas, you should contact one of the following:

Your supervisor(s)
The Graduate Office (graduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk)
The programme convenor: Professor Andrew Thompson (andrew.thompson@history.ox.ac.uk)
The Director of Graduate Studies for Michaelmas 2024: Dr Kate Lebow (katherine.lebow@chch.ox.ac.uk)
The Director of Graduate Studies for Hilary and Trinity 2025: Dr Simon Skinner (simon.skinner@history.ox.ac.uk)
Your College: you will have a College Advisor, as well as a Tutor for Graduates, Senior Tutor, or Dean of Graduates. Please do attend your College induction events to find out who your college contacts are, for both academic and welfare matters.

Details of the administrative staff that support the Master’s courses can be found on the Academic Administration page of the History Faculty website: https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/administrative-staff.

If you have any comments or suggestions about the content of this handbook, please email them to graduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk.

Welcome from the Director of Graduate Studies

Welcome to your Master's course in History at Oxford. I look forward to meeting you in person at some point in the coming year and wish you every success in the months to come. Above all, I hope that you enjoy postgraduate study here and find it rewarding.

Our Faculty is one of the largest history departments in the world. It brings together an extraordinary array of scholars pursuing an unparalleled range of research. This is reflected in the abundance of research seminars, regular graduate workshops, special lectures and discussion panels that take place throughout the academic year. As a postgraduate student, you will probably be spending more time in independent study than you did as an undergraduate, and the live, in-person discussion available at a regular research seminar can be important for both social support and intellectual stimulation. You will find events listed on the Faculty website; while you will need to prioritise attendance at lectures and seminars in your own specialist area, you are welcome to attend anything that interests you. In this respect, I also encourage you to explore Oxford's intellectual life beyond the Faculty, in the Colleges, the lecture lists and seminar series of other faculties and departments, and at TORCH (the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities).

The Graduate Joint Consultative Committee (GJCC), made up of academic staff and student representatives, meets every term. It works in conjunction with the Oxford History Graduate Network (OHGN), a student-led forum that organises social and academic events and raises matters of concern to students with the Faculty's graduate office. You can find more details of both these organisations at the links above and I would encourage you to think about getting involved

The MSt and MPhil in History bring together nine "strands", or different areas of historical research. You therefore belong to two cohorts: a smaller one focused around your strand and a larger one encompassing all students on the master's program. In your first term, the Sources and Historiography seminar will be your introduction to your specific strand, and your Theories and Methods class will bring you together with other students on the larger degree course. We hope that you will benefit from both the stimulus of working with historians of other periods and places, and the specialist expertise of the tutors on your strand.

Like any large institution, the collegiate University of Oxford is a complex place to navigate and it is entirely normal to find it difficult to get around both the place and its processes. Whenever you have questions that aren't answered in this handbook or elsewhere on the Faculty or University websites, you should contact your thesis supervisor or (for College or welfare issues) your College advisor, Tutor for Graduates, or College welfare team; your course tutors; or the convenor of your strand. You are also welcome to contact the Graduate Office, whether in person, by phone (01865 [6115011) or by email (graduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk). If you still don't have an answer to your question, or if you have concerns you don't wish to share with your supervisor, tutors, or the office, please do contact either Richard Reid, the Convenor of the MSt/MPhil in History, or me.

While graduate study can be very exciting, it can (and should) also be challenging. We hope most of the challenges you face at Oxford will be intellectual ones, but other challenges – whether financial, personal, or related to physical and/or mental health – are not uncommon. If you feel you’re struggling for any reason, don’t go it alone: we may be able to help. So do reach out to one of the people mentioned or the Faculty’s welfare lead, Maya Blackwell (maya.blackwell@history.ox.ac.uk).

This handbook is intended to be a comprehensive guide to the teaching, assessment and administrative arrangements of the course (but please note that the formal rules governing the programme are set out separately in the University's Examination Regulations); it also contains useful information on other aspects of life in Oxford as a postgraduate historian. You can find further information about graduate matters on our Canvas pages.

Once again, welcome to graduate work in history at Oxford.

Dr Katherine Lebow

Director of Graduate Studies in History

1.1 | Overview

All course information can be found on Canvas.

The Master of Studies in Global and Imperial History encourages students to develop intellectual and practical familiarity with advanced research in the global history of the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Australasia, and the Americas (excluding the US). Its chronological reach has recently been pushed back to 1400 CE. Global and Imperial history in this context examines broad patterns and systems in history, whether religious, political, economic, cultural or ecological. In other words, it is history with a global scope (often including European dimensions) that emphasises comparative and connective perspectives. It is not merely the self-contained history of places outside Europe. Students are not expected to master the histories of multiple regions, but to use a global approach to cast light on their own research area.

The course extends over nine months and has three main parts:

Core course: Concepts and themes in Global and Imperial History (Michaelmas Term)
An advanced option course (Hilary Term)
Dissertation (all year)

1.2 | Course timeline

You MUST check all deadlines against the Examination Regulations for your course. If there are any discrepancies with what is published here, the official Examination Regulations take precedence.

Extensions to deadlines for the submission of assessed work can be requested ONLY from the Proctors, where there is good cause, i.e. circumstances beyond your control preventing you from completing assessed work on time. Details of policy and procedure can be found here lease note that you are responsible for the timely submission of your assessed work: submitting work, especially your thesis, after the original deadline may mean that your work will not be marked according to the usual timetable, and you must not make plans for graduation without first checking with the Graduate Office that your marks will have been ratified by the relevant Board of Examiners in time.

Michaelmas Term

0th Week	All new Global and Imperial History graduate students	Attend induction meeting
Weekly	Concepts and Themes in Global and Imperial History	Prepare for and attend weekly classes
Tri-weekly (approx.)	Concepts and Themes in Global and Imperial History	Tutorials, for which essays should be prepared on pre-agreed topics
Week 5, Friday (noon)	Choose Option Papers	A link will be circulated two weeks before the deadline for you to submit your options
Week 7, Friday (noon)	Concepts & Themes essay title	A link will be circulated two weeks before the deadline for you to submit the titles of your essays*
Week 8, Thursday (11:59pm)	Online Exam Entry	Although there is no exam as such, you will need to complete an online ‘exam entry’ to formalize your assessment though essays and dissertation. Exam Schools will contact you with details of how to do this. PLEASE NOTE that this is compulsory, and that Exam Schools charge a fee for late entries and modifications to exam entries.

Hilary Term

Week 1, Monday (noon)	Concepts & Themes essay submission	Submit your Concepts & Themes essay (see Section 2 [Submission & Assessment guidance] on how to submit)
Week 6, Friday	Advanced Option extended essay title	A link will be circulated two weeks before the deadline for you to submit the titles of your Advanced Option essay and Dissertation *
Week 6, Friday	Dissertation title
Week 8, Friday	Graduate Student Research event	Present research at the Global and Imperial History Graduate Student Research Event
Week 9, Monday (noon)	Advanced Option extended essay submission	Submit your Advanced Option extended essay (see Section 2 [Submission & Assessment guidance] on how to submit)

Trinity Term

Week 9, Monday (noon)

Dissertation submission

Submit your Dissertation (see Section 2 [Submission & Assessment guidance] on how to submit)

*Modification of your essay and dissertation titles is only possible up to five days before the submission deadline, and requires the permission of the course/option tutor or (for your dissertation) your supervisor. Once permission has been obtained, the new title should be sent to the Graduate Office by email (graduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk).

Please note that most title changes that are approved are small adjustments to the title and/or focus of an essay or dissertation. Proposed title changes that radically alter the topic of a piece of work are unlikely to be granted approval at a late stage.

1.3 | Core Course: Concepts and Themes in Global and Imperial history

All students must take this course. There are weekly seminar classes of 1.5 hours, for which students are required to read selected items and during which they must engage actively in group discussions.

Each student will be required to make one or two short presentations on the readings over the course of the term.

Students are also expected to attend three tutorials through MT, for which they will write an essay and also do one or two short presentations.

The Concepts and Themes course is assessed through an extended essay (4-5000 words) on a topic related to the course and agreed by the Convener.

The essay should be based on one of the weekly themes, and students are encouraged to discuss their essay plan in tutorials.

This essay accounts for 20% of the overall mark for the MSt.

The essay title should be as descriptive and precise as possible, posing a question or proposition that can reasonably be dealt with within the word limit.

As noted in the Course Timeline above, the draft title is due on Friday of 6th week in MT. The essay itself is due on Monday of 1st Week in HT.

1.4 | Option Paper

Students should choose one Option paper by the end of Week 5, Michaelmas Term. Option papers will be provided by specialists from the History Faculty and from elsewhere in the University. Options available vary from year to year, depending on the availability of teaching staff, and the Faculty reserves the right to not run an option if there are insufficient numbers enrolled. Available options are listed on Canvas.

Candidates wishing to take an advanced paper from another programme offered by the History Faculty, and exceptionally, by other Faculties, may do so with the permission of the Global and Imperial History course convenor and the convenor for the paper in question. This approval must also be communicated to the Graduate Office.

PLEASE NOTE: Students taking an option paper from a programme other than that in which they are enrolled will be assessed on that paper according to the regulations of the programme under which the advanced paper is offered. This means that deadlines, length of assessed work, teaching timetable, and mode of assessment may be different to option papers being taken by other students on the same course. If you take a paper from another programme, please consider the impact on your workload based on the other deadlines for your own programme. The modes of assessment and deadlines for the other course elements of the programme for which the candidate is registered are unaffected. Advanced or Option papers from other programmes may run for 8 weeks. Please contact graduate.office@history.ox.ac.uk if you have any questions.

Teaching is carried out via classes and tutorial sessions. Over the course of Hilary Term, each student will prepare essays and receive tutorials on the topics of their choice, in consultation with their Options teacher and within the remit of the Options paper.

1.5 | Dissertation

Supervision arrangements

During the admissions process you are assigned a supervisor to direct your intended individual research. In the course of the first term, your research focus may change – and in some cases this may lead to a change in your supervision arrangements. If this happens, you should complete a GSO.25 form (change of supervisor or appointment of joint supervisor) and submit it to the Academic Office so that the student record system can be updated: https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/graduate/progression.

Your supervisor’s primary responsibility is to advise you on the programme of work necessary to complete your dissertation or thesis. To this end, they should maintain a general overview over your course work and academic development. They should help you to identify and acquire the knowledge and skills needed to complete your dissertation or thesis, and to further your aims for study or employment, insofar as these build upon the programme of graduate study.

Dissertation Workshop

A strand-specific dissertation workshop will be held early in Trinity Term, at which students will be expected to give a short presentation of their work. Further details will be provided during the course of the academic year.

Dissertation title

You should agree a definitive title with your supervisor(s) and inform the Graduate Office of the title by the deadline. The dissertation should be on a topic falling within the scope of this programme.

The Examiners will expect your dissertation to be clearly distinct from coursework essays in either chronological or geographical range, or historical issue. The dissertation is expected to include some study of original source material, whether in printed, manuscript, or other form (e.g. archaeological, numismatic, visual evidence, etc).

Planning your research

The following notes for students and supervisors provide rough guidance for students and supervisors - individual progress rates will vary, depending (for example) on the level of your background knowledge; whether you need to acquire new technical skills; the speed at which you identify a workable topic; the accessibility of sources in Oxford or Britain; the time needed to process data; the extent to which the research programme makes feasible the drafting of chapters while research is in progress, etc.

Michaelmas term:

Meet supervisor
Identify any training needs
Plan lecture/seminar attendance and a programme of secondary reading necessary to set the scene for proposed research
Initial exploration of primary sources
Discuss subject and nature of the research proposal you plan to submit as part of your examination
Expect to spend one day a week on preparing your dissertation project, and arrange to see your supervisor three or four times after the initial meeting

End of Michaelmas Term:

Discuss whether applying for doctoral research in Oxford or elsewhere, and if so nature of doctoral research proposal (the deadline for submission of the application is mid-January)

Christmas vacation

Proceed, against the background of continuing work as above, to refine definition of dissertation topic
Definitively identify and establish familiarity with primary and secondary sources central to your proposed master’s research
If applying for re-admission to doctoral programme, AHRC funding, or other funding requiring a doctoral research proposal, work with supervisor to refine that well in advance of the January application deadline

Hilary Term

Finalise plan of work remaining for dissertation and agree this with supervisor
Revise the structure of your master’s dissertation in the light of this ongoing exploration
Expect to step up work on your dissertation project to about two days a week
Again, arrange to see your supervisor for about three sessions

Easter vacation/Trinity Term

Complete research, modifying plan and structure as necessary in process
Produce draft – make sure draft is in supervisor’s hands in plenty of time for supervisor to comment (supervisors are not expected to comment on drafts received later than Monday of 6th week)
Revise in light of comments: make the most of the opportunity to work full-time on your dissertation up to submission, extensively consulting original sources and carefully revising your dissertation, giving it a tightly argued structure and presenting it in idiomatic English which makes it accessible to a non-specialist reader

Dissertation submission and word limit

The dissertation must be submitted by the given deadline. Refer to Section 2 for guidance on how to submit your dissertation, and for guidance on the presentation and submission of essays and dissertations.

The dissertation should consist of up to 15,000 words. It must be accompanied by a short abstract which concisely summarises its scope and principal arguments, in about 300 words; the abstract should be bound into the dissertation, immediately after the title page. Please see Word Count in Section 2, for detailed guidance on what is included and excluded from the word count.

The dissertation must not exceed the permitted length. If it does the Examiners will reduce the marks awarded.

Part of the exercise of writing a dissertation lies in devising a topic that can be effectively handled within the word limit. However, in exceptional circumstances – for example if a large section of your dissertation is taken up with translations or lengthy appendices – you can apply to the Director of Graduate Studies for permission to exceed the word limit. This should be supported by your supervisor.

1.6 | Feedback

Formative feedback

Students will receive regular informal feedback on their essay plans, class presentations and contributions, and dissertation plans, from the class leaders, course tutors, dissertation supervisors, and their peers.
For the Concepts and Themes course (Michaelmas Term), the feedback (including feedback on an outline essay plan) will be provided through one of the small tutorial groups you will be assigned to.
For the Advanced Option Course (Hilary Term) the nature and timing of the feedback provided by the class tutor will depend on the particular course chosen. Please discuss this with the class tutor.
The feedback on Dissertations will come primarily from the thesis supervisor as it progresses in the course of Hilary and Trinity terms. Be sure to discuss the timetable of your thesis work with your supervisor; supervisors will have other commitments which may make it necessary that you provide them with your full draft well in advance of the deadline. Supervisors will generally do everything they can to support your research and writing, but it is your responsibility to make contact with your supervisor, agree a timetable of work, and provide drafts in time for them to comment and return them to you. Dissertation feedback will also come from a day of Dissertation Presentations, held usually toward the end of Hilary Term and when, as well as peer feedback, one of the faculty members present will provide a written and / or verbal response to the presentation.
Students are encouraged to attend the Friday GIH Training Seminar in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms, after which there is usually the opportunity for students to talk informally with a range of faculty members attending about the progress of their work.

Summative feedback

The examiners will provide summative feedback on your assessed essays and your dissertation. Indicative marks and feedback for your concept and Themes and Option essays will be shared via Canvas by the Graduate office once they have been approved by the MSt Global and Imperial History Exam Board. Feedback for your dissertation will be shared the same way, however, given the proximity to the summer Exam Board, your dissertation mark will only be released alongside your final classification.
Please note that marking is inherently subjective, and it is not uncommon to receive two separate pieces of feedback that may differ in tone or perspective.

1.7 | Seminars

1.8 | Changing Programme

It is possible to switch from the MSt to the MPhil, but it requires the approval of your supervisor, the course Convenor, the Faculty’s Director of Graduate Studies, and your college. Please note that such a change may have an effect on your funding and/or visa status, and that all applications to change programme must be completed by 8th Week of Hilary Term.

The Change of Programme of Study form for this process (GSO.28) can be found here.