History and Film Studies with a year Abroad

History and film studies is a combination that reveals just how much these two disciplines have to say to one another. Film has been used to document, reconstruct, mythologise and interrogate the past since almost the moment of its invention, and no serious historian can ignore the role of cinema and television in shaping how societies remember, misremember and reinterpret their own stories. At the same time, film analysis deepens in significance when you can situate individual films and movements within the historical contexts that produced them.

At the University of East Anglia you will explore both sides of this relationship, developing a grounded understanding of historical methodology and the skills to interpret a wide range of primary and secondary sources, alongside the analytical frameworks used in film studies to examine narrative, genre, representation and the cultural work that cinema does. You will consider how film has been deployed as historical evidence, how it has shaped collective memory, and how the history of the medium itself reflects the social and political contexts of different eras. This programme includes a year abroad, giving you international academic experience.

The course runs over four years full time.

Graduates from this combination bring skills in research, analysis, critical reading and written communication that are valued across a wide range of careers. Film and media industries, broadcasting, journalism, archive and library work, cultural heritage, education, arts administration and policy all offer relevant opportunities. The combination of historical depth and media literacy is increasingly valued in an environment where questions of representation, memory and the reliability of moving image sources are of real public importance.

Postgraduate study in film history, cultural history, media studies or archival science is a natural further step.