Course summary

Birkbeck is a global centre for research and teaching on ‘race’ and racism. We are home to multidisciplinary communities of scholars and students, academic programmes and research centres committed to the study of this subject area. This innovative interdisciplinary course that stretches across the arts and humanities and social sciences consistently achieves outstanding levels of student satisfaction. It offers the opportunity to explore:

• histories of ‘race’ and racism, multiculture and postcoloniality

• connections between transcontinental histories of colonisation and contemporary social formations and inequalities

• how local debates on inequality are shaped by the global geopolitics of the twenty-first century

• postcolonial political communities, social identities and cultures.

• This course introduces you to important historical and political debates and theoretical frameworks and bodies of work in the broad area of 'race', racism and postcoloniality. MA students can undertake an empirical or theoretical dissertation or a practice-based dissertation such as a film or an exhibition.

• Birkbeck is the first higher education institution in London to receive the title University of Sanctuary. You will have access to the Race Forum at Birkbeck, which is affiliated to the Culture Diaspora Ethnicity programme, research centres such as the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, the Birkbeck Institute on Gender and Sexuality and the Centre for Law and the Humanities. You will be able to join specialist student reading groups that focus on areas such as medicine, ‘race’ and empire and psychoanalysis and colonialism and attend talks across the College and University of London.

• This course consistently achieves very high levels of satisfaction from Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey respondents. In 2019 and 2020, the student satisfaction rate was 100%; in 2021 the rate was 95%; in 2022 it was 85%; and in 2023 it was 100%.

• If you are taking this course part-time, you may be eligible for a Bonnart Trust Master’s Studentship which will cover the cost of your tuition fees. You must have received an offer of a place on the course by 31 May 2025 to apply. You may also be eligible for a Birkbeck Access to Postgraduate Study Scholarship or an Aziz Foundation Scholarship.

• filmmakers, journalists, teachers, curators, architects, novelists, poets, musicians and activists

• lecturers and researchers in the subject areas of history, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, urban studies, psychosocial studies and sociology

• psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychiatrists; barristers and solicitors.

• criminalisation and policing

• domestic violence

• refugees and asylum

• human rights

• homelessness

• imprisonment

• addiction

• youth and community work.