Study options
- Starting in
- September 2025
- Location
- Mile End
- Fees
- Home: £12,850
Overseas: £29,950
EU/EEA/Swiss students
What you'll study
This MA provides a rare opportunity to be taught by world-class scholars working across the University of London in the fields of intellectual history, the history of political thought and the history of philosophy.
This joint programme is run by University College London (UCL) and Queen Mary University of London. The programme brings together research and academics from institutions such as Birkbeck, University of London, the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), King's College London (KCL), UCL, Queen Mary and Royal Holloway, University of London, to provide a range of expertise.
You’ll be taught by staff from the departments of History, Law, Modern Languages and Literature, Philosophy, and Politics.
In addition to the use of UCL and Queen Mary libraries, you will have access to outstanding research libraries, including the British Library, Senate House Library, the Warburg Institute Library, the Wellcome Library, the IHR Library and the Dr. Williams Library.
You’ll also be offered optional language training in a modern European language, or in ancient or medieval Latin.
You are encouraged to participate in the research programme and events hosted by the Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought.
Additional costs
You might incur a small travel cost (eg travelcard) when you attend the core course, History of Political Ideas research seminars, or choose to study or research at another institution.
Structure
- Compulsory core module
- Choose between two and four elective modules
- Dissertation
In addition to the assessed portion of your course, you’ll be expected to attend the fortnightly research seminars in the History of Political Ideas at the Institute of Historical Research. A faculty seminar organised by an academic convenor alternates with an early career seminar organised by research students.
Compulsory/Core modules
The dissertation for the MA in the History of Political Thought and Intellectual History is worth 60 credits and should be a maximum of 12,000 words. It is undertaken by independent research on a topic formulated in consultation with your adviser, with in-put, as required, from module options teachers. Your topic is formulated early in Semester Two, with titles and brief outlines submitted in March. You are then assigned to an appropriate supervisor. Students are able to discuss plans and drafts with their supervisor in a minimum of three supervision meetings arranged between the beginning of the exam period and the end of June. Tuition takes the form of one-to-one supervision.
This course provides an essential grounding in modern intellectual history and political thought. It introduces students to the most important kinds of methodology practised in the field of intellectual history since the nineteenth century, and some of the most influential thinkers and themes in the history of political thought since antiquity. It is divided into two parts, corresponding to semesters one and two respectively. The first part covers a variety of key philosophical, historical, political and sociological theorists whose work has inspired a range of approaches in the history of ideas in Anglo-American and European scholarship. The second part involves in-depth exploration of the thought of a selection of major authors and thematic concerns in the history of European political thought, considering them in the light of the different methodologies surveyed in the first part.
Elective modules
Black radical thought in the twentieth century drew on a long tradition of circulating ideas. It did so in order to formulate new readings of Enlightenment ideals that would address sovereignty and autonomy within the specific conditions of black life. This module examines how black thinkers stretched the category of "intellectual" through combined thought and practice. Workers and educated elite formulated specific analyses of the combined working of capitalism and empire, grounded in the importance of New World slavery to the modern world's political and social economy. Black women challenged the assumed distinctiveness of race, class, and gender and formulated distinctive visions of what "freedom" might mean. In this module we will think with black radicals' ideas about empire, war and expropriation, work and social life and consider their strategies for realising alternative forms of social and political organisation.
This course provides students with an in-depth understanding of what some of the most important political thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (before the emergence of what is called 'contemporary political theory' since the 1970s) thought and wrote about the phenomena and concepts referred to as `nationalism', `patriotism¿ and `cosmopolitanism¿. Thinkers focused upon include eighteenth-century predecessors such as Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottfried Herder, J. G. Fichte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Richard Price, Jeremy Bentham, as well as nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, John [Lord] Acton, Matthew Arnold, Giuseppe Mazzini, Alexis de Tocqueville, Auguste Comte, Thomas Hill Green, Henry Sidgwick, Frederic Harrison, J. R. Seeley, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Rabindranath Tagore, Ernest Barker, Alfred Zimmern, Otto Bauer, Harold Laski, Bertrand Russell, Elie Kedourie, John Plamenatz, Isaiah Berlin and others. The emphasis of the module is not on `nationalist¿ or `cosmopolitan¿ thinkers as such, but on what political thinkers thought and wrote about the nation, patriotism, nationalism, internationalism, and cosmopolitanism from the time of the French Revolution to the Cold War.
This course examines the pivotal role that capitalism has played in political thought from the early twentieth century to the present. It shows how a range of thinkers blurred the boundaries between political and economic analysis in order to reformulate key political concepts and variously to argue, for the maintenance, transformation or overthrow of capitalism. The course starts with a number of figures seeking to grasp the imperial and racial character of the global market system, before exploring how these arguments were transformed by total war, revolution and decolonisation. The course then turns to the ways in which questions of financialisation, inequality, automation and climate crisis came to shape how capitalism is understood. Thinkers studied include: W.E.B. Dubois, Rosa Luxemburg, John Maynard Keynes, W. Arthur Lewis, Eric Williams, Gunnar Myrdal, Joan Robinson, Friedrich Hayek, Silvia Federici and Thomas Piketty.
European states raced to establish empires in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that would provide them with resources to assist in their struggles with each other to survive. As those states engaged in this process of expansion, various authors reflected on what it would mean to be the subject of such empires, thereby developing the concept of rights. At the same time, others used the tools of political thought, including concepts of virtue, greatness, interest, and reason of state, to animate the instruments of empire, including joint stock corporations such as the East India Company. These authors articulated modern understandings of the ways in which states project their power as well the rules of the international order.
The module explores attitudes to empire and imperial expansion between the 18th and the 19th century. It will cover debates on empire in Europe and will focus first on Enlightenment attitudes (from Diderot, Herder, Raynal to Adam Smith and Edmund Burke), and then on nineteenth century writers, from Benjamin Constant, to Sismondi, Cattaneo, Mill and Tocqueville. By so doing, the module will discuss at the relationship between ideas of freedom civilisation, culture, international trade and Empire, and will provide an analysis of the meanings of concepts of Empire.
Please note that all modules are subject to change.
Assessment
- 67% Modules
- 33% Dissertation
Modules are assessed by coursework. You'll also be assessed by a 12,000-word dissertation.
Dissertation
You will also be assessed on a supervised 12,000-word dissertation. Recent dissertation subjects include:
- The Enlightenment Tradition: Rousseau and Kant in Rawls
- Edmund Burke and Abbe de Mably – Ideas on Democracy and Monarchy
- Buchanan, Republicanism and the Scottish Jacobites
- Critical Solidarity: Adorno, the Darmstadt Avant-garde, and the Administered World
- Hindu Nationalism: The views of Savarkar and Vajpayee on Freedom
- Condorcet’s democratic scheme of representative government
- W. Arthur Lewis 1938-1954: Development and the Re-imagining of British Colonial Relations
- The Fantasy of Home: The Metaphysical Little England of J. R. R. Tolkien and G. K. Chesterton
Teaching
Most classes are taught through extended seminars, with independent work completed outside these hours.
You'll also take an active role in your own learning through independent study, reading, and writing essays.
We want you to get the best from your studies, so you'll be paired with your own Academic Adviser, who'll support you academically and pastorally along the way.
—I can sincerely say I have loved the MA. The course professors are incredibly respected professionals in the field, which reassured me of the quality of education and expertise I would receive. Overall, I would describe it as the opportunity to be part of a community where you feel like both your intellectual and personal concerns have room to be expressed and explored.
Cristina Conesa, History of Political Thought MA 2021
Where you'll learn
Facilities
- Our new Graduate Centre: purpose-built study spaces and a roof-top common room with a terrace
- Fortnightly research seminars at the Institute of Historical Research
- Access to Queen Mary's libraries on all our campuses
- Access to the University of London’s outstanding research facilities and collections
- Access to a wide range of online resources (including journals, books, databases and media)
Campus
You'll be studying for your MA in an exceptional location. You'll have unrivalled access to galleries, museums, archives and libraries across London. The British Library is the best library in Britain for historians, and access to its many collections is one of the many advantages of studying in London. Our staff regularly collaborate with these organisations, giving you unique opportunities to meet curators or have private viewings.
About the School
School of History
The School of History at Queen Mary has a vibrant and successful postgraduate community.
Our links with external organisations (museums, industry, political institutions) will not only benefit you while you study but also after you graduate.
Our distinguished academic staff will be familiar to you from TV and media and include five fellows of the British Academy, and fellows of other prestigious societies and organisations, such as the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Medieval Academy of America.
Career paths
Many of our graduates have done or are currently doing PhDs or are in academia– both in London and at a variety of other institutions from Oxford and Cambridge to Berkeley and Yale. These include:
- Dr Jessica Patterson, Lecturer in the History of Political Thought, Fellow and Director of Studies, Magdalen College, University of Cambridge
- Dr Adela Halo, Lecturer in History of Political Thought, University College London
- Dr Alessandro de Arcangelis, Lecturer in Intellectual History, University College London
- Dr Signy Gutnick Allen, Department of History, University of Zurich
- Dr Paul Sagar, Lecturer in Political Theory, King’s College London
- Dr Elias Buchetmann, Lecturer in Early Modern History and Research Associate, University of Rostock
- Dr Xinxian Zhu, Assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China
- Dr Max Skjönsberg, Assistant Professor of Humanities, University of Florida, Hamilton Center
- Dr Vanessa Lim, Assistant Professor, Seoul National University
- Dr Lisa Kattenberg, Assistant Professor in Early Modern Intellectual History, University of Amsterdam
Students have also gone on to work:
- at the BBC
- in publishing, at prestigious academic presses like Polity Press
- as political advisers in Westminster, the European Parliament, and on
- congressional campaigns in the US
- at NGOs like Global Witness
- as researchers
- in finance
- in teaching.
Fees and funding
Full-time study
September 2025 | 1 year
- Home: £12,850
- Overseas: £29,950
EU/EEA/Swiss students
Unconditional deposit
Home: Not applicable
Overseas: £2000
Information about deposits
Part-time study
September 2025 | 2 years
- Home: £6,450
- Overseas: £15,000
EU/EEA/Swiss students
Unconditional deposit
Home: Not applicable
Overseas: £2000
Information about deposits
Queen Mary alumni can get a £1000, 10% or 20% discount on their fees depending on the programme of study. Find out more about the Alumni Loyalty Award
Funding
There are a number of ways you can fund your postgraduate degree.
- Scholarships and bursaries
- Postgraduate loans (UK students)
- Country-specific scholarships for international students
Our Advice and Counselling service offers specialist support on financial issues, which you can access as soon as you apply for a place at Queen Mary. Before you apply, you can access our funding guides and advice on managing your money:
Entry requirements
UK
Degree requirements
A 2:1 or above at undergraduate level in a Humanities subject.
Find out more about how to apply for our postgraduate taught courses.
International
English language requirements
The English language requirements for our programmes are indicated by English bands, and therefore the specific test and score acceptable is based on the band assigned to the academic department within which your chosen course of study is administered. Note that for some academic departments there are programmes with non-standard English language requirements.
The English Language requirements for entry to postgraduate taught and research programmes in the School of History falls within the following English band:
Band 5: IELTS (Academic) minimum score 7.0 overall with 6.0 in each of Writing, Listening, Reading and Speaking
We accept a range of English tests and qualifications categorised in our English bands for you to demonstrate your level of English Language proficiency. See all accepted English tests that we deem equivalent to these IELTS scores.
Visas and immigration
Find out how to apply for a student visa.