The Public History Placement module provides students with the opportunity to experience developing a public history project in practice, and to reflect critically upon that practice.
The placement consists of two elements. The first element is a 10 week placement hosted by an external partner with whom the student will work to complete a specific output, such as a piece of research, an exhibit, a report, or an online resource. External partners vary each year but include: museums, archives, heritage organisations (such as the National Trust), community organisations, and media companies/consultants. Examples of placement projects include:
Researching, writing and recording historical podcasts
Working with a historical consultant on a TV/film production
Designing exhibitions and activities for museums and archives
Developing social media content and campaigns
Developing walking tours/trails
Researching historic buildings and people to support funding applications
Designing educational activities for children and young people
Working with artists and creative practitioners on historical installations.
Students taking the placement module will be advised of available placements in the Autumn term and will apply for the options they find most appealing. Placements are allocated before the end of the Autumn term.
The second element of the module is guided private study towards the final unit of University assessment. Each student will have an academic supervisor who will support them to reflect on their placement within a broader context, supported by group workshops on the themes and practices of public history.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Spring Term 2022-23 |
The module aims to:
At the end of the module, students will have:
Teaching Programme:
The placement is primarily independent work undertaken for your host and for your assessment. It consists of 200 hours in total, comprising 120 hours practical experience, 40 hours of private study and 40 hours preparing the Placement Essay. In addition to their responsible supervisor in the host institution or project, students on placement will have an academic supervisor, with whom they will meet three times in the course of the placement. The second of these meetings will, wherever possible, be held jointly with the host institution supervisor.
Alongside this there are a number of taught workshop sessions to support you, including briefing sessions in the autumn term and three 2-hour classes in the spring term.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
Students are required to keep a Workbook of no more than 3,000 words during the first 4 weeks of the placement. This must be submitted in week 5 of the spring term, and will inform discussion at the second supervisorial meeting. It does not count towards the summative assessment for the module.
Summative assessment is on a 4,000 word Reflective Placement Essay, to be submitted in week 1 of the summer term.
For further details about assessed work, students should refer to the Taught Masters Degrees Statement of Assessment.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
The workbook submitted in week 5 will inform discussion at the second supervisorial meeting.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the module starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
Sayer, Faye. Public History : A Practical Guide. London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
Cauvin, Thomas. Public History: A Textbook of Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.
Kean, Hilda and Paul Martin (eds.). The Public History Reader. London: Routledge, 2013.