(History of Political Thought and Intellectual History MA, 2021 (joint programme with UCL))
The academic staff at UCL and Queen Mary are highly supportive, respectful, and open-minded. You really feel like you are being treated as an equal and you are encouraged to challenge others in a productive way.
Why did you choose to study the joint Queen Mary and UCL MA in History of Political Thought and Intellectual History?
My interest in intellectual history, and the history of political thought more specifically, emerged somewhat organically during my undergraduate studies at the University of Bristol. Looking backwards at the end of the three years, I began to realise that there was a clear pattern connecting the elective modules I had chosen, the tutors I had sought out, and the essay topics I had researched. After three years working as a history and politics secondary school teacher, during which time I completed the Teach First Leadership Development Program in West London, I was eager to return to university to complete a Masters in Intellectual History. The Queen Mary/UCL MA in History of Political Thought and Intellectual History stood out to me for different reasons, and I was compelled to apply for it in 2020. Several features of the course particularly attracted me, the world-class ‘star quality’ of the academics teaching the course including Professor Quentin Skinner and Professor Gareth Steadman-Jones and guest lecturers such as David Armitage, the breadth of elective modules available to choose from and the MA program’s track-record for enabling its alumni to subsequently gain PhD placements at top-ranking universities around the world.
What historical period do you find most interesting and why?
For me the beauty of intellectual history lies in its power to reveal to us the historical contexts within which our present-day assumptions were founded, moreover intellectual histories, properly constructed, are critiques of our perspectives, that yield up alternative conceptual frameworks known by our ancestors, but which we have lost. The benefits of recovering these alternative understandings through the close reading of texts in context include an enriched public discourse and an accessible antidote to intellectual hubris and parochialism.
In spatial and chronological terms my main area of interest is sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe. My research involves exploring how modern conceptions of God, being, knowledge, religion, and science, emerged from a centuries-long maelstrom of religious conflict, political discord, and social change. For a long time, communities and institutions in western society have been content to accept a master-narrative promoted by the Enlightenment’s champions; a story about how we emerged, disenchanted, from the darkness, by rejecting the ‘superstition’ of the ancient world and its philosophies. The result was that we moderns were wiser, freer, and more tolerant as a result. Anyone who has watched the news recently or read much modern history, must surely recognise that the bluff has well and truly been called on this assumption. I see my work as part of the effort to take this teleology to task by revealing how conceptual frameworks born deep in the ancient, medieval, and early modern past remain fundamental and relevant to our understanding of the world today.
What aspects of your master’s degree did you enjoy most and what was the focus of your research?
Studying the MA (2020-21) during the Covid-19 pandemic certainly brought challenges with it and it meant that my cohort’s experience was always going to be somewhat different. The lack of face-to-face teaching for example, the inability to get into the archive and the missed opportunities to socialise with cohort peers. That said I found the whole experience of studying the program remotely to be very enjoyable and there was a real camaraderie amongst my fellow MA students. A particular highlight of the course for me was the dissertation in the third term. Throughout the whole course we had been able to choose the titles of our essays, but the dissertation gave me the chance to dedicate an entire term to pursuing an original piece of research. I was excellently supported by my course supervisor and dissertation tutor Professor Andrew Fitzmaurice and the result was a paper which I hope to convert in the future into a published journal article.
As I indicated in my answer to the previous question, I have long held a suspicion that we need to be more attentive to the early modern religious contexts which together formed the crucible out of which our modern western worldview emerged. To test this hypothesis, I sought to show how the writings of a little-known seventeenth-century philosopher from my home county of Devonshire, Dr Richard Burthogge (1637/8-1705), ought to be contextualized within the religious and political conflicts of his day. The argument which emerged from this research was that his theses concerning perception and existence should not be read anachronistically as exciting pre-cursors to ‘modern’ eighteenth-century thinkers such as Kant, but rather as an engagement with some of the most pressing questions of his own time, such as, how can I find salvation? What is God’s nature and what is the nature of my soul? How does God interact with the world? In the scientific and secular twenty-first century, I think it is difficult for us to take such questions seriously, or to see the connection between enquiries about knowledge, existence, and religion which our seventeenth-century ancestors took for granted. Yet opening our minds to older, alternative perspectives can only serve to enrichen our own conversations, which all too easily tend to pit religion against science, and which abjure history’s rich storehouse of sophisticated tools for thinking about the most profound questions a human being can ask.
You studied your master’s as a mature student. Can you tell us about your career journey before undertaking your MA? Why did you choose to pursue higher education at that point?
Having taken a gap year after I completed the International Baccalaureate at Sixth Form, I spent 2014-17 reading History for a BA (hons). During that time, I was unsure whether I wanted to pursue an academic career straightway or whether I wanted some vocational experience under my belt. When I heard about the Teach First program, I was immediately attracted to its crusade against unjustifiable educational inequality. The three years I spent teaching 11–18-year-old school children history and politics were immensely fulfilling. Sharing my passion for the past and helping my students to succeed at GCSE and A-Level was something I am very grateful I had the chance to do, particularly as several of my students went onto read history and politics at universities such as Southampton, Queen Mary and Oxford. However, I knew deep down that the opportunity to research, write and teach, which a postgraduate career offered, was one I could not turn down. It was for that reason that I applied to the History of Political Thought MA at Queen Mary/UCL in 2020, knowing that if I did well, I could then progress to a PhD and beyond. By leaving a gap between my BA and MA, I also gave myself the opportunity to vastly improve my writing and research skills. During my time teaching I had to complete various research modules for my PGDipEd, and there is nothing like marking fifty exam papers for improving one’s ability to edit and re-write!
Can you tell us about life since graduation? What are you doing now?
I am very pleased to say that the MA program gave me the academic credentials and networks I needed to be able to apply for History PhD placements at three top UK universities. I am even happier to say that I currently hold offers from UCL and Oxford. I am hopeful that I will secure funding from at least one of these institutions so that I can take up their offer. I spent most of the autumn of 2021 preparing my PhD applications (a time consuming but rewarding process), but I am currently putting my research and analysis skills to good use as a Knowledge Manager at a market leading global executive legal search firm where I spend my days supporting recruiters to understand the EMEA and APAC legal markets as well as the firm’s recent performance.
How did your master’s degree help prepare you for your career?
Quite rightly, the standards are set very high on the MA program, there is an expectation that the quality of your research and writing will match the class of teaching and support which is on offer at Queen Mary and UCL. Graduating from the program means that you can work competently both independently and collaboratively. Moreover, it means that you bring an analytical and evaluative bent to the workplace which can be very helpful in terms of innovation and raising performance. Historians, by their nature, tend to be able to turn their hand to different things, my own CV is no exception, as the skills we develop are highly transferable. Yet, I would not have been able to apply for PhD programs or secure the job I currently have were it not for the skills and knowledge which the MA instilled in me. People both in the academic and non-academic world regard the History of Political Thought MA at UCL and Queen Mary very highly and this has given me the confidence to pursue my goals.
What would your advice be to those interested in an MA in History of Political Thought and Intellectual History?
I should emphasise that another real strength of the MA is its diversity in terms of the people it attracts. My cohort was truly global in origin, and intellectually cosmopolitan. Whilst I indicated earlier that the criteria for embarking on the MA are high, that is not to say they are discriminatory in any sense. My course peers had previously studied a rich range of subjects, not only history, but English, international relations, politics, philosophy, and economics. What we all shared was a real love of ideas, and a belief that thought as much as action is a cornerstone of history. My advice would be to do your due diligence in terms of the courses which are out there and to research what the MA at Queen Mary /UCL involves in terms of content and delivery. You don’t need to do masses of pre-reading before you start the course, but it does help to have a general sense of what intellectual history is and some of the main contemporary debates which are in vogue. Intellectual historians are highly methodologically aware as a rule (probably because for a long time we had to devote our efforts to justifying our work to those pesky social and cultural historians… (I jest)), this means that for a newcomer the literature can be quite intimidating. I would say just get stuck in, keep on going with it and when the dots start to join it feels incredibly satisfying and eye-opening. The academic staff at UCL and Queen Mary are highly supportive, respectful, and open-minded. You really feel like you are being treated as an equal and you are encouraged to challenge others in a productive way.
If you would like to get in touch with Samuel or engage him in your work, please contact the Alumni Engagement team at alumni@qmul.ac.uk.