Course summary

Public history and heritage is concerned with the practice of history outside of academia in all its myriad forms, and public historians come in all shapes and sizes: they are consultants, museum professionals, archivists, preservationists and curators, cultural resource managers, policy specialists and community activists, among many other roles. What they share is a commitment to making history relevant, beneficial, informative and instructive within the public sphere. Our MA Public History and Heritage will introduce you to key aspects and issues of the practice. It will provide you with the necessary theoretical and practical skills to undertake critical assessments of public history projects and interventions - as well as to create your own - and includes the option of a work placement module to give you hands-on experience in a heritage organisation. Its focus on public history in practice will provide you with a wide range of examples of different types and methods of public history, from museums and material culture, to public history in the media, to the role of history in policy making. This course aims to give you a sense of:

• the wide range of public history

• the variety of roles played by historians in public

• the importance and impact of public history in politics, culture and society.

• Birkbeck was ranked in the top eight universities in the UK for its History research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

• Our research is unique in its range across geographical and chronological boundaries. We are the only university in London to include historians, classicists and archaeologists in the same academic team investigating every period from prehistory to the early twenty-first century. We see the study of the past as crucial for our understanding of present-day society, culture and politics.

• All Master’s students are eligible to apply for our prestigious Eric Hobsbawm Scholarships, subject to availability. One of the most influential historians of the twentieth century, Eric Hobsbawm taught at Birkbeck for over five decades and embodied what is central to our teaching and research: a continued commitment to critical enquiry and public engagement.

• We are at the heart of academic London with access to unparalleled research resources. Situated very close by are: the Institute of Classical Studies, with its library, training facilities and seminars; the British Museum, with its extensive collection of classical antiquities; and the British Library, the largest national library in the world.

• historian

• higher education lecturer

• archivist

• journalist

• heritage manager

• politician’s assistant

• academic librarian

• museum/gallery curator.