The Master's program in History at the University of Reunion Island is a research-based course closely linked to professions related to the memory, culture, and heritage of the island and the Indian Ocean. The curriculum focuses on the sources, methods, and key themes of the history of this region, both the cradle and current driving force of globalization. Cultural and heritage professionals also contribute to various courses offered.

Educational goals :

The teaching approach aims at the acquisition of disciplinary and methodological content as well as professional skills, enabling integration into the socio-professional fabric upon graduation. In addition to classes on the Moufia campus, some teaching units include off-campus sessions.

A mandatory 140-hour internship is undertaken in the second year of the Master's program (M2). The defense of the thesis marks the culmination of the research component of the training.

Through training in historical sciences, the Master's program allows students to:

• Confronting historical knowledge
• Develop a examiner's doubt
• Analyze historical knowledge
• Build a scientifically developed approach
• To develop reasoning and explore multiple approaches in order to answer questions
• Developing skills in know-how (reviewing files, understanding problems, organizing ideas, written and oral expression, analyzing events….

The training aims to provide knowledge about the Indian Ocean region through studies of societies, cultures, and power structures.

Training opportunities:

The Teaching Units (UE) offered within the framework of the Master's program in History provide students with the opportunity to train, to learn and to prepare for the local (Reunion Island), regional (Indian Ocean), national (France) and international (Europe, other continents, particularly Africa and Asia) socio-professional environment that characterizes the geo-economic situation of the island of Reunion.

The pre-professional nature of the three "Cultural and Heritage Professions" modules, spread across the first three semesters of the program, is reinforced by the fact that these courses (50 hours of equivalent tutorials in total, in addition to the mandatory 140-hour internship) are taught by professionals. This allows the program to be grounded in the socio-professional realities of the field and gives students the opportunity, from the outset, to engage in dialogue with professionals. Students are thus informed about the job market in the fields of history, culture, and heritage, and can build their professional networks based on their interests.

This program is rooted in the local area while maintaining a strong international and national focus.

Diversity of aspects of the training: disciplinary content (Lectures (CM) given by HDR teachers specializing in the issues covered), theoretical and methodological orientation (large number of hours of Tutorials (TD) dedicated to research methodology, expression techniques concerning the development of a scientific dissertation, the valorization of research and its results), pre-professional dimension (courses presenting the professions, the pathways to them, the skills expected and how to acquire them); professional dimension (140-hour internship, internship report, dual support: by a tutor at the internship site and a supervising teacher from the team of tenured teaching-researchers).

Total teaching hours: 558 student hours

Including 140 hours of internship

Main guidelines and content:

The program is distinguished by a strong focus on "imperial, global, and connected" history, to which two 25-hour tutorial-equivalent (HETD) modules are dedicated (the first in Semester 1 (S1); the second in Semester 2 (S2)). Furthermore, the program methodologically aims to make students aware of the importance of considering different scales of analysis. The first semester also begins with a 20-hour tutorial-equivalent (HETD) module on historical research methodology. Regional history is also central to the curriculum, with strong links to archives, museums, and other heritage institutions: internships and documentary resources are integrated into the program.

From this perspective, some course units are dedicated to sources ( Sources of history in S1: 20 HETD and  Sources and historiography of the Indian Ocean  (same number of hours in Semester 2). Importance of teaching practices related to assisting with the writing and organization of the dissertation, through 2 course units entitled Write a dissertation (15 hours of teaching time in Semester 2 and 10 hours of teaching time in Semester 4), at the various stages of the writing process. Furthermore, support is provided by the teaching unit. Intermediate research project in S2 (20 HETD) and the EU  Dissertation defense  in S4 (15 HETD), to meet a need expressed by students and observed by teachers during this critical phase of the program, the final semester, where students sometimes feel isolated. The language training follows this progressive approach: the program includes three English language modules, one during each of the first three semesters ( Applied English for Historical Research  at S1;  Write a scientific text in English  at S2;  English language documentation  (at S3).

One of the major innovations of the program is its pre-professional dimension through three dedicated modules.  Heritage and culture professions  In the first semester, the focus is on a Job mapping  (20 hours of teaching time), in the second semester, the access routes (types of contracts, competitive exams, additional training required) are presented (15 hours of teaching time); finally, the third semester is devoted to  Historian's Fields , with an emphasis on anthropology and archaeology, which are particularly important for local and regional history (15 HETD).

Finally, the program contributes to the historical education of other students in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities by offering three minors dedicated respectively to "Digital Humanities" in their usefulness to historical studies (Semester 1), to the history of slavery (Semester 2), and  Historical documentation  (S3, for each semester 25 HETD).

The skills acquired during this training are in line with those of the RNCP record

Skills or abilities specific to the training:

• Conducting historical research
• Identify the structures specific to each historical period
• Identify and analyze the flows (People / objects / knowledge / processes)
• Cross-referencing and comparing European and non-European periodizations
• Analyze the history of other cultural areas, countries, spaces
• Compare national and international histories and historiographies
• Prioritize observation scales
• Mastering the art of historical synthesis
• Understanding diachronic connections to interpret documents within their contexts
• To use and master a specialized and comparative historical lexicon
• Collecting, using and interpreting a corpus
• To categorize a text within a genre
• Reading a text from outside one's own point of view: a cultural reading of difference
• To have expertise in at least one foreign linguistic and cultural area
• To understand another culture in an informed and reasoned way
• Analyze and situate exchanges with foreign collaborators within the cultural context
• Accessing documents and texts in an ancient language and/or in a modern language
• To mobilize a thorough historical knowledge of a literary corpus in a foreign language

Transversal skills :

• Implement advanced and specialized uses of digital tools
• To mobilize and produce highly specialized knowledge
• Implement specialized communication for knowledge transfer
• Contributing to transformation in a professional context
• Formalize and implement a historical research project
• To produce a critical analysis and to value historical sources
• To carry out cultural mediation and the promotion of historical research
• Developing documentary and archival management of historical sources

A 140-hour internship in the second year of the Master's program is mandatory.

Registration fees are set annually by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Space and are available on our institution's website: Register at the University of Reunion

• Having acquired a solid disciplinary culture in the relevant field of study.
  To have followed a path consistent with the targeted training.
• To be able to analyze, problematize and write in a clear and reasoned manner.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team, with rigor and respect for deadlines.
• Demonstrate a thoughtful interest in the training, the topics and the career opportunities.

• Analysis of transcripts from the three years of the bachelor's degree: overall average, progress, results in the main subjects of the discipline.
  Verification of the alignment between the courses taken and the themes of the Master's program.
• Evaluation of writing quality and ability to construct critical thinking from academic productions, taking into account grades in production (technical expression unit) and in methodological units.
• Teacher evaluations, letter of motivation, consistency of academic record.
• Activities mentioned in the Curriculum Vitae (CV).
• Relevance of the training and research project, coherence between previous background and professional objectives in the cover letter.

Bachelor's degree in history or in humanities and social sciences.

Bachelor's degree in another academic discipline.

Depending on the student's situation, applications for admission to the first year of the Master's program (M1) follow three specific procedures (the national platform MonMaster, Études en France, Validation of Acquired Experience). For more information, please consult the university's student services page. Enroll in the first year of a Master's program

Baccalaureate + 3 or equivalent

Bachelor's degree in history or in humanities and social sciences.

Bachelor's degree in another academic discipline.

40 seats

For more information, you can consult the university's student services page: Register at the University of Reunion

In 2023-2024:

M1: 80%

M2: 80%

Events

Postgraduate thesis.

Culture and heritage competition, libraries.

Civil service examination.

The sectors of activity and types of employment targeted by this training correspond to those listed in the RNCP record

• Cultural engineering.
• Project setup.
• Heritage enhancement and preservation.
• Database creation for private companies, data and archive processing, digitization.
• Communication and consulting for businesses.