Are you interested in the history, literature or culture of classical, medieval or early modern civilizations? Do you aspire to a career in research? This Research Master's track is just what you are looking for.
This two-year Research Master's track focuses on Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Early Modernity in Europe and the Middle East. The programme gives you the opportunity to specialize in your chosen area of research, as well as to explore the similarities and differences between the range of periods studied within the programme. You receive a thorough training in today’s relevant research tools for studying the premodern world, including digital humanities.
Classical, Medieval and Early Modern Studies offers a multidisciplinary and international environment. Depending on your background and research interests, you can choose to concentrate on one or more of the areas (History, Literature or Classics) within this interdisciplinary programme.
You can design your own research profile to fit your interests. The programme provides specialist, tailor-made tutorials and courses on theory and method. You collaborate with our top researchers on their academic projects and can spend a study period abroad at one of our partner universities. To complete your studies you write an MA thesis on a subject of your own choice and specialisation, which will give you a firm basis for further studies at PhD level.
After completing my Bachelor's degree programme in English Language and Culture I was on the lookout for more depth and specialization. This Research Master's track was just what I was looking for. I was also able to broaden my knowledge by following a number of private seminars and tutorials.
One of the most enjoyable and successful parts of my degree was the tutorial that I set up with my fellow students, The Skelton Project. We worked on a website with digital editions of poems by the medieval poet John Skelton. Although we’ve graduated now, we still love working on animations of Skelton’s poems. In the Research Master’s track we didn’t just conduct research, but developed other skills too. Organizing the conference in the first year, for instance, was good preparation for the organizational side of the academic world. If I hadn’t made the decision to do the Research Master’s track in Classical, Medieval and Early Modern Studies I wouldn’t be where I am now as a PhD student at the University of Groningen. In my PhD research, I am analysing medieval manuscripts containing agricultural texts that English landowners would have read. My interest in this topic was aroused when I was studying the development of this kind of text for my Master’s thesis.
I applied at several universities but chose Groningen because of the interdisciplinary nature of the track and the fact that in contrast to other universities, Groningen offers a two-year track instead of one. More importantly, the lesser amount of tuition fees, comparing to other countries, has been an important motivation for doing my Master's degree here in the Netherlands.
The advantage of this track is that it offers the opportunity to structure your programme as you want. I choose the courses that are fitting my interests: ancient history. Thus, I can set the focus on my own investigation, with efficient supervision: associations of the Greek and Roman cities. A great asset of the track is that some courses include excursions to other countries. For instance, in the first semester we visited Rome and this has been a great and unique experience for me. Not only did we have the opportunity to visit a lot of sites and museums, but also to experience academic work on site, that is presenting certain monuments, in front of the monuments, rather than via a pc.
Furthermore, I find it very convenient that there are not many exams in the track. They do not count my development as a student on a strict basis of reproducing knowledge, but they want to see my interpretation and my research. Although the track has disadvantages sometimes, in general lines this approach is fulfilling for me. For the future I would like to continue with my research since I have plans to do a PhD.
The Faculty of Arts also offers one year master’s degree programmes in Classics, Literary Studies and History.
