Intellectual History (MLitt)

University of St Andrews

The MLitt in Intellectual History is an interdisciplinary programme which provides students with a broad knowledge of the latest intellectual-historical research, encompassing politics, religion, philosophy, science, international relations, economics and literature.

Course information

The MLitt in Intellectual History is an interdisciplinary taught postgraduate programme run by the School of History. The course explores major historical, historiographical, and methodological aspects of intellectual history alongside an individually tailored programme of directed reading.

Highlights

• This interdisciplinary programme brings together experts from across the University with a common interest in researching and contextualising key ideas in their subject areas.
• Students learn to treat past ideas as historical phenomena, as well as assess the meanings of these ideas as intended by their authors, and in contexts beyond those their authors may have foreseen.
• The course covers the different kinds of intellectual history being practised today, and the relationship between intellectual history and philosophy, literature and literary studies, international relations, law, politics, economics and theology.

Teaching format

The modules are taught through seminars and fortnightly tutorials, with class sizes ranging from individual supervision up to 12 students. The modules are assessed by coursework only; there is no final exam.

Students will spend the final three months of the course focusing on researching and writing the final assessment piece for the MLitt, a dissertation of not more than 15,000 words.