History PhD

University of Liverpool

The aim of our History PhD is to support you to become a fully-fledged independent researcher. You’ll prepare an original thesis under the expert guidance of two supervisors, becoming an expert in your chosen field.IntroductionThe Department of History is part of the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, one of the largest Schools in the University, exploring culture and society from the origins of humanity to modern day politics. We’re an interdisciplinary group of historians committed to an engaged approach to the global past.The interests of our staff and postgraduate researchers reach from late antiquity right up to the present day, and encompass histories of Britain, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. We have some of the finest archive and library facilities in the country and regularly co-supervise interdisciplinary PhDs with colleagues from Archives and Records Management, Politics, Irish Studies, Music, Geography, Archaeology, Language, Cultures and Film, English and Criminology.Research topicsStudents usually propose their own research topics, focusing on any field of historical study and any period in which the department has supervisory expertise. Recent projects have included:Ideal Rulership between insular and Carolingian worldsDefinitions of Abortion in Early Modern EnglandColonial Readers in Eighteenth-Century IndiaFemale Drunkenness in mid-Victorian LancashireImperial Identity and the Early Scouting MovementAmphibious Environments and Senses of Self on the Breton and Welsh Coasts, 1870s-1930sBreaking and Remaking the British Egg: Intersections of Class, Health and Animal Welfare, 1956-1999The Women’s Movement in Merseyside, c.1968-1990.From time to time, the department will also seek students wanting to work on specific themes. In recent years, these have included:Early Modern AtrocityRace, Slavery, Abolition and the Liverpool Athenaeum (in partnership with the Liverpool Athenaeum)Student Antisemitism in pre-WW2 EuropeThe Language of American PopulismMasculinity and Femininity in Imperial ChinaLocating Cold War Imaginaries (in partnership with English Heritage).Note: History MPhil also available