Skip to content | Change text size
Handbooks Courses Units
 
Monash University

print version

History - Faculty of Arts

Offered by the School of Historical Studies

History offers postgraduate supervision across a broad range of fields, along with coursework units and degrees which enable students to explore their own interests as well as key theoretical, interpretive and methodological questions about the nature of historical knowledge, research and writing. The seminars, conferences and reading groups, provide a supportive environment for all postgraduate students. Historical research is primarily concerned with interpretations of the past based upon the careful analysis of evidence and the critical assessment of other perspectives. Our courses also focus upon different approaches to the tasks of research, interpretation and writing, and encourage students to address questions such as the nature and status of different forms of historical evidence, the 'uses' of history in public debate, and the relationships between history and other ways of recording and remembering the past. History's questions are intrinsically fascinating: How can we know about the past? What can we know? Who speaks in the historical record, and who does not? If the past is written about in this way or that way, what are its consequences for interpretations of the present and the future? Our aim is to provide research and coursework students with the critical tools to undertake their own investigations of past worlds and to explore their own.

History at Monash covers a broad span of fields. Specific research strengths include Indigenous history and the history of racial and ethnic relations; the history of gender and sexuality, especially in Australia, Britain and Europe during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries; Australian social and cultural history, especially urban history, local history, oral history, public history and social welfare; South and Southeast Asian history, Indonesian history and the history of imperialism, colonialism and post colonialism; European social and cultural history, especially French history, German history, renaissance studies, urban history, family history and the intellectual history of religion and belief in medieval and early modern Europe; military history; American history, especially social and cultural history; Jewish history; and biography, autobiography, oral history, memory and life stories. There is also considerable expertise in the area of historical biography. Students with research interests in areas such as public history and heritage should also refer to the 'Public history' discipline entry. For a full list of staff and research interests, see http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/historical-studies/staff/index.html. answers to those questions.

Research degrees in history combine detailed work in a particular area with broader training in appropriate research skills and in understanding of the changes within history as a discipline.

Research students are offered regular research training and work-in-progress seminars, an annual one-day conference for the presentation of graduate research, and the opportunity to participate in editing Eras, a refereed online journal.

Relevant course groups

  • Faculty Certificate
  • Graduate Certificate
  • Graduate Diploma
  • Postgraduate Diploma
  • 3937 Postgraduate Diploma in Arts (Research)
  • Masters degree by coursework
  • Masters degree by research and coursework
  • Masters degree by research
  • 0020 Doctor of Philosophy

Contacts

Coursework

Telephone: +61 3 9905 2199

Email: liisa.williams@arts.monash.edu.au

Research

Telephone: +61 3 9905 2206 (research)

Email: rosemary.johnston@arts.monash.edu.au (research)