MPhil in American History

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Overview

Covering the history of what is now the United States from the colonial period to the modern era, the MPhil in American History helps you develop expertise and consolidate your knowledge in this expanding field of historical scholarship. At its core, the MPhil provides the opportunity to shape your own intellectual trajectory and questions through undertaking your dissertation in consultation with leading historians in the field. The individual and closely supervised dissertation work is complemented by coursework that will widen your intellectual range and by a dynamic weekly seminar.

 
The MPhil in American History offers taught courses and a dissertation over a 9-month programme.  Students take three courses in the first two terms – a mandatory core course focusing on historiographical debates and thematic approaches, and two Option courses.


The 15–20,000 word dissertation is the centrepiece of the course, and will be planned and undertaken through close work with your supervisor. Regular supervisions will enable the identification of key questions and ideas to address, as well as archival sources and a sense of the wider significance of your research. The supervisor will be chosen prior to admission according to your research interests, and will assist you throughout the course to make the most of the intellectual resources that Cambridge can offer.


If you plan to continue onto a PhD in American History, or simply wish to explore American History at a deeper level, this is the course for you.

At a glance

All students will submit a thesis of 15,000–20,000 words, worth 70 per cent toward the final degree.

Students also produce three 3,000-4,000-word essays, two in Michaelmas term and another in Lent term; each essay is worth 10% of the final degree grade.

All students admitted to the MPhil in American History will be assigned a supervisor to work with them throughout the course, but crucially on the dissertation. Students will meet regularly with their supervisor throughout the course.

Students can expect to receive:

  • regular oral feedback from their supervisor, as well as termly online feedback reports;
  • written feedback on essays and assessments and an opportunity to present their work;
  • oral feedback from peers during graduate workshops and seminars;
  • written and oral feedback on dissertation proposal essay to be discussed with their supervisor; and
  • formal written feedback from two examiners after examination of a dissertation.

If you have any questions, drop us a line on american@hist.cam.ac.uk

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Meg Roberts
Meg Roberts
MPhil student in American history
In the American History MPhil, I found a welcoming, generous and energised community of historians who supported me just as much as they pushed me to be a better scholar.

Course aims

  • Offers students with some background in History the opportunity to consolidate their knowledge of modern American history. It is particularly appropriate for those who may wish to continue on to a PhD, at Cambridge or elsewhere, in American history.  It is also well-suited for those who seek simply to explore American history at a deeper level, and to develop independent research skills while pursuing questions within the field of American history.
  • Provides an opportunity for students to undertake, at postgraduate level, researching and writing a piece of original historical research under close supervision by an acknowledged expert.
  • Exposes students to the full range of intellectual and professional experiences offered by Cambridge’s extensive historical community, including over thirty specialist research seminars that meet weekly or fortnightly, plus interdisciplinary forums such as CRASSH (the university’s centre for humanities and social science research). There are further opportunities for outreach and dissemination of academic research, including work in digital humanities and multi-media.

 By the end of the programme, students will have:

  • Knowledge of key debates and trends in American history and historiography;
  • Skills in presenting work in both oral and written form;
  • Research skills relevant to the specific area in which they will have written a dissertation; and
  • The ability to situate their own research findings within the context of previous and current scholarly debates in the field.

The course

Core Course: Debates in American History and Historiography (Required)

This course is required of all students so that students develop a foundational understanding of key themes in American history. Students acquire the skills needed to pursue advanced research in American history.

Combining the coverage of classic texts of American historiography with readings of new work in the field, so as to bring students up to date on central debates in the field, the course covers key themes in political development, labour and capitalism, foreign relations, borderlands, race, immigration, nationality, gender, sexualities, and intellectual history.

Option Courses in 2023-24

Transnational history is here to stay. Over the past three decades, historians have demonstrated that the flow of capital, commodities, ideas and cultural practices across national and imperial boundaries brought the United States to the ‘world’ long before its politicians claimed the position of global superpower. Yet with all this emphasis on global networks, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that this movement was undertaken and experienced by human beings.

Focusing on the century and a half between the Early Republic and the outbreak of the Second World War, this course will situate the human body at the center of the transnational turn. Whether they knew it or not, sailors, scientists, soldiers, activists, businesspeople, and performers were at the forefront of American foreign relations in this period. In an age before commercial air travel, the routes and reasons for mobility were especially significant: from individual tourists and entertainers in Europe to the surge of reformers and administrators that poured into the United States’ new territories in Puerto Rico, Hawai’i, and the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century, people and power went hand in hand.

This seminar examines how power functioned, centering the mutually constitutive relationship between proximal intimacies and distant imaginaries. We’ll investigate how American encounters with foreign places and people shaped responses to key domestic issues and debates. We’ll also think about the role of race, class, and gender inequalities in structuring the American presence in the world. More than just surveying the remarkable breadth of recent literature in this area, students will interrogate a series of critical questions that run through this scholarship: To what extent did Americans act as representatives of their nation abroad? Were missionaries agents of colonialism? Was travel a liberating experience? Who and what did ‘Americanization’ entail? And, perhaps most crucially for historians of the domestic United States, what did Americans bring with them when they returned home?

This seminar introduces students to the field of environmental history through a focus on early America. We will trace the different ways historians have looked at race, empire, and capitalism in relation to the environment over the past few decades. We will look at classics in the field as well as more recent works pushing the field in new directions. Each week is centered on two readings, one a book, and the other an article, with the idea that they complement each other in revealing ways. The seminar moves roughly chronologically (1400-1850) and covers a variety of thematic approaches to environmental history, including work on colonialism, resource extraction, climate, knowledge, and labor. Students will come away with a firm grasp on key trends and debates in both environmental and early American history.

With both global migration and U.S. immigration debates in the news today, immigration is at the center of dramatic changes in contemporary American society and politics. But of course, immigration is nothing new, and the U.S. is just one of many countries around the world with histories of emigration and immigration. We live in a world in motion, and migration and its consequences are central topics of study for scholars in multiple disciplines. Once practiced mainly as the writing of community and ethnic histories or as national social histories, the field has expanded in new directions as it has responded to interdisciplinary theories, critical approaches to race and racism, and global and transnational frameworks.

 This graduate seminar examines U.S. im/migration history as an academic field from its origins in grass roots community history to its evolution into a multidisciplinary field that employs global frameworks. We will explore the role of im/migration in American life and its intersections with settler colonialism, race, citizenship, gender and sexuality, law and politics, labor, international relations, refugee resettlement, human rights, activism, and global/transnational/diasporic frameworks and identities. We’ll examine a range of different methodologies, including archival research, community-engaged research, literature, ethnography, journalism, oral history, critical race. We will consider the origins of the field and read newly-published works that overlap with American Indian, African American, Chicano/Latino, and Asian American Studies and that employ new theories of migration. With debates over immigration in the U.S. at an all-time high, we’ll consider the connections between historical and contemporary migrations, exploring where the field has been and where it is going.

What was the nature of the relationship between the United States and other Western Hemisphere nations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What is the relationship between formal and informal empire in US history? Why does Latin America and the Caribbean matter to the construction of US nationalisms? And, in addition to military and economic influence, how was US empire constructed culturally? This course explores the mutual entanglements between the US and Latin American and Caribbean history. It considers various iterations of US imperialism and intervention across the hemisphere, as well as local responses, revolutions, and alternative visions to US empire. Recent historiography has turned away from approaching inter-American relations solely through state-to-state relationships and US archives. Instead, the course draws largely on work based on Latin American and Caribbean perspectives and archives, emphasizing empire’s intersections with race, gender, sexuality, culture, and capitalism. Topics include Manifest Destiny; the War of 1898; racial capitalism; US military interventions; the Panama Canal; the Guatemalan, Cuban, and Chilean Revolutions during the Cold War; US-backed counterrevolution; and migration.

The MPhil in American History combines taught and research elements over a 9-month full-time programme.

The taught elements include three modules, as well as training workshops and seminars, all of which are worth 30% of the final degree mark. There is also a long final thesis (15,000-20,000 words) worth 70% of the final degree mark.

Core Course: Debates in American history and historiography

  • Weekly Seminars
  • Assessment: Essay (3 -4,000 words)

Option 1

  • Teaching: Weekly seminars
  • Assessment: Essay (3-4,000 words)

Preparatory dissertation work

  • Independent research and 1-on-1 supervisor meetings
  • No assessment

Applying to the course

To apply to the MPhil in American History, you will need to consult the relevant pages on the Postgraduate Admissions website (click below).

Since applications are considered on a rolling basis, you are strongly advised to apply as early in the cycle as possible.

On the Postgraduate Admissions website, you will find an overview of the course structure and requirements, a funding calculator and a link to the online Applicant Portal. Your application will need to include two academic references, a transcript, a CV/ resume, evidence of competence in English, a personal development questionnaire, two samples of work and a research proposal.

Research proposals are 600–1,000 words in length and should include the following: a simple and descriptive title for the proposed research; a rationale for the research; a brief historiographic context; and an indication of the sources likely to be used. The document should be entitled ‘Statement of Intended Research’. Applicants are encouraged to nominate a preferred supervisor, and are invited to contact members of the Faculty in advance of submitting their application to discuss their project (see our Academic Directory: https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/academic-staff).

Below are some anonymised examples of research proposals, submitted by successful applicants to the MPhil in American History. You may use these to inform the structure of your submission. Please note that they are purely for guidance and not a strict representation of what is required.

American History - Research Proposal 1

American History - Research Proposal 2

 

Assessment & dissertation

The Cambridge MPhil is split into Part I and Part II.

Part I

Each of three modules in Michaelmas and Lent (one Compulsory Core, and two Options) will require a 3,000-4,000 words essay (or equivalent).  Each will count toward 10% of the final degree mark, for a total of 30%.  Taken together, these are Part I, and students must receive passing marks in order to move to Part II.

Students will also prepare a 2,000 word dissertation proposal essay due in the Lent Term. This essay will be unassessed but students will meet with their supervisor to discuss the essay and get feedback.

Part II

The Dissertation or Thesis is Part II of the course.  Each student on the MPhil will prepare a thesis of 15,000-20,000 words. The thesis will be due in early-June and will count for 70% of the final degree mark.

An oral examination will only be required in cases where one of the marks is a marginal fail.

The Dissertation, or thesis, is the largest element of the course, worth 70% of the final mark.

Students are admitted to the University on the basis of the research proposal, and each student will be assigned a Supervisor who will support the preparation of a piece of original academic research. Candidates must demonstrate that they can present a coherent historical argument based upon a secure knowledge and understanding of primary sources, and they will be expected to place their research findings within the existing historiography of the field within which their subject lies.

All students should be warned that thesis supervisors are concerned to advise students in their studies, not to direct them. Students must accept responsibility for their own research activity and candidacy for a degree. Postgraduate work demands a high degree of self-discipline and organisation. Students are expected to take full responsibility for producing the required course work and thesis to the deadlines specified under the timetable for submission.

Research Seminars & Training

The American History Seminar Series involves all faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, affiliates, and graduate students in a weekly discussion of research. The research is often presented by a visitor to the University, or may be the work of a lecturer or fellow in the American History Group. This Seminar has marked the University of Cambridge out as a global centre for American History scholarship. Students are required to attend.

In addition, the American History workshop typically meets weekly during Michaelmas and Lent terms and fortnightly during Easter term. The workshop is aimed at PhD students but MPhils may attend with the permission of the convenor. The majority of workshop sessions are devoted to reading and discussing works-in-progress by PhD students; other sessions are devoted to research methods or professional skills. American History MPhil students have also benefitted from workshops run at the Faculty and University levels on oral history research methods and on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology.