A seminar-based unit designed to enable students to develop advanced skills in historical research and writing. This unit is organised on an ecumenical basis utilising the faculty and resources of each of the MCD’s Recognised Teaching Institutions. Appropriately qualified students from each RTI are entitled to participate. The unit will include sessions exploring the nature of history and examining historical methodology. Students may fulfil the requirements of this subject in either of the following programmes:

Programme 1: Reading Course
An intensive reading programme will be designed for students choosing this option. Assessment will take the form of a number of pieces of written work and a final examination.

Programme 2: Research Project
Students electing this option will be required to produce one major essay resulting from their research on a specialised topic approved by the lecturer in charge of the subject.

Prerequisites:
two levels of Church History

Requirements:
3 hour seminar per week

Assessment:

• CH397 (15 points): one 5,000 word essay
• CH398 (30 points): one 10,000 word essay

CH398 may be completed over two semesters as CH398A (part 1) and CH398B (part 2).

Bibliography:
Extensive bibliographies on the themes for specialisation will be arranged in class.

• Augustine, St. City of God. Book 5. (any edition).
• Bebbington, David W. Patterns in History: Christian Perspectives on Historical Thought. Leicester: InterVarsity, 1979.
• Carr, Edward H. What is History? The George Macaulay Trevelyn Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge January – March 1961. 2nd ed. Edited by R. W. Davies. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987.
• Elton, Geoffrey R, ed. The Practice of History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
• Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London: Routledge, 1991.
• McIntyre, C. T. God, History and Historians: An Anthology of Modern Christian Views of History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.