Dissertation

You will undertake a research project and produce a dissertation which is submitted on an assigned date in mid-August.

The final element of the programme is a 15,000 word dissertation (60 credits), which students complete during the summer months. This is an independent, primary source-based research project supervised by one or more members of academic staff. Students have considerable freedom to define their own dissertation project — so long as it is a feasible project that one or more staff members have the expertise to supervise.

Example dissertation topics

Past dissertation topics have included:

  • "Erinnerungsstreit?" The perception of the Holocaust and Holocaust memory after the death of the eyewitness
  • Italian Influences on the study and teaching of history and the development of polite education in Edinburgh, 1708 - 1750
  • Spinoza, Schlegel, and Novelis: The Spinozism of the German Romantic Novel
  • A Tale of Two Pneumatologists: Jean Fernel and William Harvey on the Concept of the Soul and Theories of Generation
  • The Concept of Divine Providence in the Boyle Lectures (1692-1725)
  • Thomas Carlyle's Philosophy of History as Meaning: The Case of 'Sir Walter Scott'
  • How significant were the influencies of Eastern mysticism and German philosophy in Edward Carpenter's critique of modern civilisation?
  • Sources of the Superfluous: Concepts and Experiences of the Redundant in [Hannah Arendt’s] Elemente und Ursprunge totaler Herrschaft

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