War: History and Politics MA (PGCert PGDip)

Why study with us?

The course offers:

• a critical approach to the politics and ideologies underpinning modern warfare
• contemporariness and a regularly updated curriculum
• a truly interdisciplinary approach
• close supervision in all stages of the students’ degree
• a combined teaching method of lectures and seminars that caters for the varied disciplinary and educational backgrounds of our students
• flexible pathways, offering students the choice of either committing to a particular disciplinary method or exploring a variety of new approaches.

Instead of focusing on the usual themes of military history and conflict studies, this degree brings together methods and arguments from critical history, politics, philosophy and cultural studies. It offers you specialist training that opens you up to a wide range of disciplines and employment sectors.

Soviet propaganda from the Cold War

Areas of study

There are two core modules.

Forms examines the lead up to war and what is happening in wartime. It looks at topics such as: the ideological and wider structural causes of war; the human experience at the home-front and at the war-front; the politics and justifications of making war as they have evolved in time; the different modes of resistance.

Legacies looks at what is left after a conflict – the social changes, the human impact, the lasting trauma; how violence continues to exist on material and psychological landscapes; the multiple ways through which personal and collective memories of killing and sacrifice are constructed; diplomatic and local efforts for peace and justice; and the history and theories of antiwar activism.

These themes are explored through case studies that cover all major conflicts of contemporary history: the First World War and the Second World War; the Balkan Wars and the Yugoslav Wars; the wars of Decolonisation and those of New Imperialism; the Cold War; the War on Terror and the current conflicts in the Middle East.

Beyond the two core modules students can also pick a number of option courses that relate to their interests, for example: Public History and Heritage; Cultural Memory; ‘Race’, Nation and Ethnicity; Globalisation and Global Politics; Conflict, Security and Human Rights; Genocide; International Relations theory; Aesthetics and Philosophy; Cultural Theory; Philosophy and Critical Theory.

Our programme is linked to four networks of scholar research and activism based in the University of Brighton:

• Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories
• Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics
• Migrant And Refugee Solidarity group
• Understanding Conflict: Forms and Legacies of Violence cluster.

War damaged buildings after the conflict in the former Yugoslavia

Staff profile

Dr Eugene Michail
Course leader

Dr Eugene Michail is the course leader of the MA in War: History and Politics. He is a senior lecturer in contemporary European history, specialising on Germany, Greece and the Balkans, and on transnational themes. He is currently writing on the political aims of the Greek Resistance against Nazi occupation, while his new project is on the history of migrants and refugees in modern Europe. His book The British And The Balkans: Forming Images Of Foreign Lands, 1900-1950 was published in 2011.

Some of his recent publications on the themes of war and conflict are: 

•  ‘The Balkan Wars in Western Historiography, 1912–2000’, in Katrin Boeckh and Sabine Rutar (eds), The Balkan Wars 1912–1913: Experience, Perception, Remembrance (Palgrave: 2016) 
•  ‘Western Attitudes to War in the Balkans and the Shifting Meanings of Violence, 1912–1991’, Journal of Contemporary History, 47/2 (2012), 219–39 ‘“A Sting of Remembrance!”: Collective Memory and its Forgotten Armies’, in  Jessica Meyer (ed), First World War and Popular Culture (Brill, 2008), 237–57. 

International equivalencies

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Fees

Scholarships, bursaries and loans

We offer a range of scholarships for postgraduate students. Bursaries and loans may also be available to you.

Find out more about postgraduate fees and funding.

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2019–20.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Grand Parade campus map