For those admitted to read History and Modern Languages, this page asks you about your choice of courses for the first term and tells you about the Preliminary examinations which you will take at the end of your first year.
You must also review the relevant language link from the main pre-reading home page for preparatory work in your chosen language.
Students select four papers relating to their chosen language and two papers on History to study during their first year. These will comprise of a choice from the following options.
Two Language Papers
These courses will be a combination of translation, synthèse and grammatical exercises, depending on the language you are studying.
Two Literature Papers
Various periods and genres of texts in the target languages are studied for these papers. Students will write commentaries and/or essays on the texts. There is no choice of options for students reading modern languages in the first year: all students study the same texts in a continuous and balanced way across the year. Options for specific periods and themes will be available from the second year onward.
European and World History
There is a choice between four periods: 370–900, 1000–1300, 1400–1650 and 1815–1914. These are broad outline courses intended to introduce you to a range of historical problems. It is a good idea to study a period different from that which you studied at school. Further details can be found on the History Faculty website.
A Choice of One of the Following:
- History of the British Isles (studied in Michaelmas Term): one of six chronologically-defined papers ranging from the 4th to the 20th centuries.
- An Optional Subject (studied in Trinity Term): a paper based on close study of selected primary texts or documents, offering an opportunity for study of a particular topic or theme
- Approaches to History (studied across Michaelmas and Hilary terms): An examination of interdisciplinary ways of studying history
- Historiography (Michaelmas and Hilary terms): Tacitus to Weber
- A foreign text by a great thinker, read in the original language (Michaelmas and Hilary terms)
Details of all of these papers are on the page for single-honours History students.
You will need to do some reading before coming up and below you will find links to some suggestions for what to read and some notes about what the different options entail in order to make your choice.
Please email me (at frederick.smith@balliol.ox.ac.uk) your choices for papers 1 and 4 as soon as possible, and by Thursday 27 July at the latest. The other choices can wait until you have started the course.’
Frederick Smith
July 2023