History

Fellows:
Dr Catherine Holmes
Dr Ben Jackson
Dr Oliver Zimmer

Lecturer:
Dr Matthew Johnson

Student Profiles:
Michelle Bannister (Graduated 2009)
Andrew Wychrij (2nd year)

With a team of three Tutorial Fellows in History as well as an Ancient Historian (Dr Lisa Kallet) and a Politics fellow with historical interests (Dr Marc Stears), Univ is one of the strongest and most intellectually lively Colleges for the study of History.

Each year the College admits between 12 and 14 undergraduates to read either History or one of the related Joint Schools (Ancient & Modern History, History & Politics, and History & Modern Languages). The College also has a thriving community of graduate historians and students in Byzantine Studies.

The three tutorial fellows in History include Catherine Holmes, whose research centres on the political and cultural history of the Mediterranean, with a special emphasis on the Byzantine Empire. She recently published a study of the political history of Byzantium in the reign of Basil II (976-1025). Her current project involves applying her long-standing interests in medieval frontiers and religious identities to an analysis of Byzantium’s role in the late medieval Aegean world. Dr Holmes teaches medieval European history, the Crusades, and late medieval British history as well as Byzantine history.

Oliver Zimmer is a historian of modern Europe who has published widely in the fields of nationalism, national identity, historical memory and (more recently) religion. His current project employs a comparative urban history approach to investigate the much neglected social history of German nation-formation c. 1860-1900.

Ben Jackson is a historian of modern Britain, with particular interests in political thought, labour history and the history of social policy. He recently completed a book on egalitarian political thought during the rise of British social democracy (1900-64). With Dr Marc Stears, Politics Fellow at University College, Dr Jackson convenes the Oxford History of Political Thought Research Seminar, which meets weekly in Michaelmas Term in University College. He teaches modern British history and the history of political thought.

The History Faculty at Oxford is among the largest and most diverse in the world with more than one hundred permanent staff teaching more than a hundred papers to twelve hundred undergraduates. The History Faculty prospectus explains in greater detail the many undergraduate papers on offer as well as outlining the compulsory elements within the syllabus. It also introduces graduate studies in medieval, early modern and modern History as well as in Byzantine Studies.

At the undergraduate level the strength of the Univ tutorial team and our range of interests allow us to foster carefully within the College the intellectual potential of each of our students while at the same time enabling them to take full advantage of the size and complexity of the Oxford syllabus. We achieve this blend of close guidance within College and access to the full range of papers on the syllabus by advising undergraduates to take options taught within College for the first two terms of their career; thereafter we encourage students to develop their own historical interests, securing where necessary expert tuition from Fellows at other colleges as well as calling on our own considerable resources. Univ’s results in History have traditionally been among the best in the University.

We seek to encourage applicants at the undergraduate level who will make the most of the academic opportunities available to historians at Univ. We are looking above all for applicants with excellent analytical abilities, strong writing skills, clarity and independence of thought, and the willingness to read extremely widely. Those historians who achieve outstanding grades during their undergraduate careers are eligible for a number of prizes, the most significant of which are the Frederick H. Bradley Prizes in History. One prize is awarded for the best overall performance in the Honour School of History or in Joint Schools with History; the other is awarded for the best History undergraduate thesis. These prizes are both usually awarded annually.

The interests of most of our graduate historians tend to fall within the research fields of our three tutorial fellows, but we welcome outstanding historians in any period or geographical area. A very generous bequest means that Univ will be able to offer in most years a major joint College-Faculty scholarship to a graduate historian of Modern Europe, Modern Britain, medieval Europe or Byzantium covering both the College and University fee liability and making a contribution to maintenance.

For more information, please consult the website of the Faculty of History.

For information about the joint degrees with History, see also the websites of the Faculty of Classics, the Faculty of Modern Languages and the Department of Politics.

See also: Classics, Modern Languages, Politics