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Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies MA

London, Bloomsbury

UK students International students

Study mode

UK tuition fees (2023/24)

£14,100

£7,050

Overseas tuition fees (2023/24)

£29,000

£14,500

Duration

1 calendar year

2 calendar years

Programme starts

September 2023

Applications accepted

All applicants: 17 Oct 2022 – 31 Mar 2023

Applications open

Apply for this course

Entry requirements

A minimum of an upper second-class Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline from a UK university or an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard.

The English language level for this programme is: Level 4

UCL Pre-Master's and Pre-sessional English courses are for international students who are aiming to study for a postgraduate degree at UCL. The courses will develop your academic English and academic skills required to succeed at postgraduate level. International Preparation Courses

Further information can be found on our English language requirements page.

Equivalent qualifications

Country-specific information, including details of when UCL representatives are visiting your part of the world, can be obtained from the International Students website.

International applicants can find out the equivalent qualification for their country by selecting from the list below. Please note that the equivalency will correspond to the broad UK degree classification stated on this page (e.g. upper second-class). Where a specific overall percentage is required in the UK qualification, the international equivalency will be higher than that stated below. Please contact Graduate Admissions should you require further advice.

About this degree

The Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies MA programme will equip you with a range of critical, theoretical and methodological tools. You will be encouraged and enabled to unpack and interpret these fields of conflict, as well as to deepen your understanding of contemporary debates about racial hierarchy and inequality and their associations with other dimensions of power and conflict.

Who this course is for

Read about what it takes to study for a Master's at UCL

What this course will give you

The programme benefits from teaching staff with backgrounds in social theory, literary and cultural studies, Geography and Anthropology, and draws upon resources from multiple disciplines to build a critical account of the origins and development of race-thinking, as well as its enduring power.

Though you may have been thinking about these issues already, the programme does not assume that you are already a specialist in these areas of scholarship. The curriculum emphasises the need for students to encounter a constellation of key concepts and to become familiar with the texts that have been foundational in the academic analysis of racism and racialisation.

You will be brought into contact with a range of examples drawn from different locations, periods and political struggles throughout history. They include Abolitionism, anti-colonial, civil and human rights movements all the way to Black Lives Matter and related contemporary conflicts over racial inequality, racial hierarchy and social justice. You will examine the history of race and raciology and be introduced to a range of attempts to map and critically respond to varieties of racist argumentation: religious, scientific, culturalist, biopolitical and nationalistic. You will be invited to grasp how race-thinking has developed and varied in different locations, periods and disciplinary contexts.

An extensive survey builds towards consideration of contemporary instances of racialised injustice and inequality. You will analyse the structural and institutional aspects of those social and political problems and see how they have been manifested in culture, politics and everyday life.

The programme affords opportunities to look at the movements that have resisted racism, injustice and inequality, seeking rights and recognition.

Read about what you'll get out of a graduate programme

The foundation of your career

The aim is to foster your ability to think critically and express your ideas rigorously in written and verbal forms; to be clear about the political and ethical problems associated with this history and to be empowered to act in pursuit of racial justice and equality in a variety of institutional contexts.

This programme aims to provide a good general foundation for further study in many humanities and social science disciplines. That foundation includes training in research methods and skills, which can be further enhanced through optional module choices.

Employability

This programme approaches race and racism through a wide range of topics. It includes a mix of history, theory and politics in relation to racism, ethnicity and postcoloniality.

It provides you with a cutting-edge perspective on contemporary approaches to the politics of race and racism. It will introduce you to the knowledge, skills and methods that will enable you to develop your own specialised interests in this field both academically and professionally.

Teaching and learning

Teaching methods are likely to vary depending on faculty, department and individual module leaders, however knowledge will be obtained and transferred by means of lectures, seminars/tutorials, student presentations, online interaction and directed readings.

Taught postgraduate modules are designed on the basis that a 15 credit module involves 150 learning hours and a 30 credit module, 300 hours, approximately one-third of the hours allocated for the assessment exercise. The remainder is divided between class time (generally two hours per week) and self-directed study. Although the structure of modules, in terms of the balance between contact hours and private study, varies between modules, courses and disciplines, in all cases the hours expected to be dedicated to private reading far exceed the hours of class attendance.

Modules

During the academic year, you will take compulsory modules which are designed to work as a postgraduate-level foundation and provide you with the specific skills to research and write essays and the dissertation. You will also choose optional modules from the suggested list (see Optional modules). These modules will form the foundation of your MA and broaden your understanding of contemporary debates around racial theory, inequality and associations with power and conflict, from historical and contemporary perspectives.

During Term 2, in addition to your taught modules, you will start formulating your dissertation proposal. This work will continue into Term 3 and across the remainder of the academic year. You will develop your dissertation outline and structure with support from your supervisor. You will give a presentation to your peers and tutors on your dissertation to help cement your argument and subject area to cover. This is a non-assessed compulsory element of the MA. You will then spend the summer researching and writing your 12,000 word dissertation on a topic to be determined in discussion with your academic supervisor.

In Year 1, you will take two compulsory modules, designed to work as a postgraduate-level foundation module and to provide you with the specific skills to research and write essays and the dissertation. These modules set the foundation for the whole MA, preparing you for further learning and for your dissertation.

In Year 2, you will take optional modules to develop your understanding of contemporary debates around racial theory, inequality and associations with power and conflict, from historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as developing key concepts learnt in Year 1. You will also formulate and develop your dissertation outline and structure with support from your supervisor. You will give a presentation to your peers and tutors on your dissertation proposal to help cement your argument and subject areas to cover. This is a non-assessed compulsory element of your MA. You will then spend the summer of Year 2 researching and writing your 12,000 word dissertation on a topic to be determined in discussion with your supervisor.

Compulsory modules

Topics in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies

Race in Theory

Researching Race

Optional modules

The Caribbean from the Haitian Revolution to the Cuban Revolution

Histories of Exclusion: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America

Anthropology and Photography

The Anthropology of Violent Aftermaths

The Politics of Health and Medicine: Race, Gender, Nation

Movement, Bordering, Race-Making

Dissertation in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies

Legacies of W.E.B Du Bois

Black Europe

Geographies of Material Culture

Social Science Research: Methodologies and Methods

Politics of Climate Change

Advanced Geopolitics

Postcolonial Cultural Geographies

Introduction to Social Data Science

Gender, Generation and Forced Migration

Data, Politics and Society

Black Germany

Empire and its Afterlives in Britain Since 1940

Portugal and it's Empire in the 20th Century: Trajectories and Memories

Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability are subject to change. Modules that are in use for the current academic year are linked for further information. Where no link is present, further information is not yet available.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits.

Accessibility

Details of the accessibility of UCL buildings can be obtained from AccessAble accessable.co.uk. Further information can also be obtained from the UCL Student Support & Wellbeing team.

Visit us

All open days and events

8 February 2023

Online - Open day

Graduate Open Events: MA Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies

17:00 — 18:00

This MA surveys the history of race and explores the social and cultural complexities of racialised inequality and injustice viewed on a global scale. The modules are taught by specialists associated with the Sarah Parker Remond Centre, as well as scholars working on aspects of race and social justice in numerous disciplines across UCL. At this event, you will hear about the structure and ethos of the course and will be able to ask questions to the core teaching staff on the programme.

Online - Open day

Introduction to MA Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies

We survey the history of race and explore the social and cultural complexities of racialised inequality and injustice viewed on a global scale.

Watch on demand event

Fees and funding

Fees for this course

UK students International students

Fee description	Full-time	Part-time
Tuition fees (2023/24)	£14,100	£7,050
Tuition fees (2023/24)	£29,000	£14,500

The tuition fees shown are for the year indicated above. Fees for subsequent years may increase or otherwise vary. Where the programme is offered on a flexible/modular basis, fees are charged pro-rata to the appropriate full-time Master's fee taken in an academic session. Further information on fee status, fee increases and the fee schedule can be viewed on the UCL Students website: ucl.ac.uk/students/fees.

Additional costs

Additional costs may include expenses such as books, stationery, printing or photocopying, or conference registration fees and associated travel costs.

The department strives to keep additional costs low. Books and journal articles are usually available via the UCL library as hard copies or via e-journal subscriptions.

For more information on additional costs for prospective students please go to our estimated cost of essential expenditure at Accommodation and living costs.

Funding your studies

For a comprehensive list of the funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to your nationality, please visit the Scholarships and Funding website.

See all the ways you can fund your studies

Next steps

Students are advised to apply as early as possible due to competition for places. Those applying for scholarship funding (particularly overseas applicants) should take note of application deadlines.

There is an application processing fee for this programme of £90 for online applications and £115 for paper applications. Further information can be found at Application fees.

When we assess your application we would like to learn:

why you want to study Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies at graduate level
why you want to study Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies at UCL
what particularly attracts you to this programme
how your personal, academic and professional background meets the demands of this programme
where you would like to go professionally with your degree

Together with essential academic requirements, the personal statement is your opportunity to illustrate whether your reasons for applying to this programme match what the programme will deliver.

Applicants should be able to show that they have an interest in developing critical analysis of racialised hierarchies and inequalities.

Please note that you may submit applications for a maximum of two graduate programmes (or one application for the Law LLM) in any application cycle.

This programme requires two references. Further information regarding references can be found on this Selecting your references page.

Choose your programme

Please read the Application Guidance before proceeding with your application.