The University of Sheffield
Department of History

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Departmental Research Culture

The department is an active centre for cutting-edge research in a wide variety of fields which means that, whether you are an MA student or a research student, there are lots of activities and events that you can get involved with.

Research Areas

Our research interests extend chronologically from late ancient history to contemporary history; geographically from the UK to Western, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, South Asia, and the USA; and thematically to include political, economic, social, cultural and intellectual history, with a distinct specialism in the application of digital technologies to historical research.

We have a variety of research clusters that combine several staff and student research interests cutting across the usual chronological and geographical boundaries. Our Research Centres see us take that further by working across faculty and University boundaries with staff from all over the world.

Examples of our research clusters include:

  • Social Movements: Theory and Activism
  • Religion and Belief
  • Cultures of Communication
  • Examples of some of our research centres include:
  • Centre for the Study of Journalism and History
  • Yorkshire African Studies Network
  • The Centre for Peace History

Find out more about our research here.

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Some of the speakers and attendees from our recent conference on ‘Confronting US Power after the Vietnam War’ co-hosted by The Centre for Peace History

Departmental Research Seminars

The department runs its own research seminar series, which runs regularly during semester-time and covers a huge range of topics. Seminars usually host an external guest speaker who will present a paper on their current research but can also be based around a roundtable discussion.

Speakers are usually established members of academic staff but there is a reserved spot each semester for one of our own postgraduate research students. This is a great opportunity for students in later stages of their research to gain experience of presenting a full academic paper to a wider audience.

The seminars themselves are open to students at all levels, both MA and research, and provide an excellent opportunity to get involved in the department’s research activities and find out more about research that’s being undertaken by staff both in your area of interest and across the discipline more broadly.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminars

We are also involved in seminar series that are faculty-wide such as the Medieval and Ancient Seminar Series which is co-hosted by the Departments of History and Archaeology and the Nineteenth-Century Studies seminar, organised by the School of English. Find out more here:

Faculty of arts and humanties seminar series
Centre for nineteenth century studies

Conference and other research events

In addition to our usual research seminars, many of the research centres and networks organise seminars, day conferences or special lectures during the year.
Most recently we have jointly organised a seminar series on Imperial, International and Transnational History with Sheffield Hallam University and have hosted conferences on a range of areas including:

  • Confronting US Power after the Vietnam War
  • The Aftermath of Suffrage: What Happened After the Vote Was Won
  • History, Genre, Narrative: Newspapers and the Construction of the Twentieth Century.

Find out more about the research seminars and other events happening this year on our news page.