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History has been part of undergraduate courses in UL since 1972, part of taught postgraduate courses since 1987 and a focus of postgraduate research since 1994. History was part of the Department of European Integration and Administration and then the Department of Government and Society. In May 2002, the Department of History was established.
In the academic year 1975/6, as the first cohort of students proceeded to their degree, a total of 120 individual students took at least one module in history. In the academic year 2003/4, a total of 1,517 students took at least one history module at undergraduate level while 167 took modules at postgraduate level. The first MA in Local History students graduated in 1999 and the first PhD was awarded in 1998. In 2004, a total of 18 research students are being supervised by History faculty (see chapter 8). Of these, 16 are doctoral students and two are research MAs. In 2003/4, 40 students took at least one history module at certificate level.
History is an important part of many degree courses at the University of Limerick. Undergraduate modules are taught through lectures and tutorials and postgraduate modules are taught through lectures and seminars. Lectures aim to introduce the student to the analysis and understanding of the principal issues in an historical theme or question, while tutorials and seminars aim to promote discussion, debate and analysis and to guide the student in reading, essay writing and research presentation.
History is not just the study of battles or high politics. It tries to capture human experience in the round, from the fabric of everyday life to the realm of ideas, art and literature. It therefore deepens and enriches your understanding of other subjects.
History is so much more than ‘names and dates’. It fixes a grounding narrative explaining ‘what’, ‘when’ and who’ as a base from which to tease out the ‘why’ questions. There is no one ‘right’ answer here; students learn to weigh conflicting pieces of evidence and the relative merits of divergent interpretations.
Collectively, we can only apprehend where we are now by knowing how we got here. Present day pre-occupations and prejudices distort that reconstruction of the past. The historian at once stands outside this as a ‘revisionist’ or debunker of myths while playing a part in the continuous project of capturing, transmitting and transforming memory and identity.
The past is not a jumble of unrelated facts or a postmodernist playground. The historian strives towards integrative generalisation, systematic analysis and coherent narrative while simultaneously recognising those features of history that make such a project problematic. History stands in creative tension as an art and science; the historian values the scientific paradigm of objectivity, rigour and theory but must exercise imagination and empathy to engage with the past.
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