Research

All research done by students of the Master’s in Historical Studies will be supervised by a researcher at the Radboud Institute for Culture & History (RICH) in Nijmegen. The central theme of the RICH research is 'Europe in a changing world'. Researchers from a variety of humanities disciplines collaborate in thematic groups to explore the spaces, cultural practices, beliefs, texts and ideas related to Europe in a changing world.

For additional information on the professors of the RICH Research Master's, take a look at their research profiles.

Thematic research groups

Historians participate in almost all of the thematic research groups of the Faculty of Arts. In our experience, the following groups are of special interest for the Historical Studies students:

Radboud Group for Historical Demography and Family History

The research group explores how individual agency relates to loyalties: to the parents, to the household, to wider kin, and to the norms of the larger community.

Cultures of War and Liberation

This research group analyses how the cultures of war and liberation are envisioned, shaped, and (mis)remembered in different political, cultural, public, educational and media contexts.

Categories Contested

This group challenges the ‘natural’ or given character of categories in history, also questioning historicising the very categories on which ‘big data’ are often built.

Repertoires of Representation

This group studies the historical variations of political representation, articulation and presentation.

The Ancient World

This research group brings together scholars of antiquity and its reception. The Ancient World group seeks to disclose, publish and study literary and non-literary texts as well as remains of material culture. It also aims to study the processes of the formation and transmission of culture and perform historiographical analyses and reception studies of the ancient world.

Tourism, Travel and Text

The research of this group looks at the traveller/tourist, the act of travelling itself (the journey), and the travel destination (conservation or even creation of heritage in relation to the destinations of travel).

Master’s thesis topics in Historical Studies

For their Master’s thesis research, students can work together with researchers from one of the RICH research groups or choose a topic in a non-related area.

A small sample of thesis topics that you could research in this programme:

  • The Pope under Pressure: Papal Propaganda during Times of Severe Crisis 1494-1549
  • The Dutch Communist Party and the question of Apartheid. Analysing the CPN’s position in relation to South Africa’s Apartheid and the anti-Apartheid movement in the Netherlands
  • Christian Suburbs: Conceptions of Constantinople’s Religious Topopgraphy at its Limits, 330-1204
  • Dogmatic democracy. Direct elections for the European parliament debated, 1958-1961
  • 'Komt voor de deur op straat'. A spatial analysis of eighteenth-century Amsterdam violence