BA History and Film Studies

UCAS Code VW16

The Queen Mary History Department was one of the first in the country to embrace film history as a field of study, and for more than 20 years courses on American and British film history have been offered to our undergraduates.

More recently, the development of a Film Department at Queen Mary has enabled students to take an even wider range of film courses. The History and Film Studies undergraduate programme provides designated pathways through the courses in both departments.

Typically, students combine their study of a particular country’s history with the study of its national cinema. For example, a student may take a course such as The American Century in combination with Cinema and Society: The United States, 1930-60 and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. Similar combinations exist for the study of British French, German, Italian and Russian history and film, and students choose at least two pathways from this field. Required courses include methodological courses such as Critical Approaches to Film, which centres on the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Introduction to Film Studies and What is Cinema?

In the final year, students may choose to take a Special Subject within History or to write a dissertation on a topic of their choosing. With nearby institutions such as the British Film Institute Library, the Imperial War Museum, the National Film Theatre and the new Mediatheque, students have access to a wealth of primary sources with which to approach the dissertation. In recent years, topics have included The Reception of Fahrenheit 911 in Britain, The Politics of Stardom: Jane Fonda in the 1970s, and Representations of Women in Wartime British Cinema.