UNISA History Course Module 2025-2026
Major combinations:
NQF Level: 5: HSY1511, HSY1512
NQF Level: 6: HSY2601, HSY2602, HSY2603
NQF Level: 7: HSY3701, HSY3702, HSY3703, HSY3704, HSY3705
| Modern South Africa: from Soweto to Democracy – HSY3705 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 7 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to critically assess the efforts to reform apartheid from the 1970s to 1990; to acquire an understanding of the forces that contributed to the decline and demise of apartheid from the 1970s to 1994; and obtain an informed view of the first decade of democracy, with its challenges and responses. |
| Research Report in History – HRHSY82 |
| Honours |
|
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 36 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: The purpose of this module is to equip students with knowledge and skills to be able to: formulate a viable research proposal for an appropriate research report in an identified field of History with the assistance of a supervisor; design a structure for a research report; undertake an appropriate literature review and develop historiographical understanding in the identified research field; present research findings in their identified field in the form of a research report using standard practices and conventions employed in History research, with the guidance of a supervisor. |
| Research Methodology in History – HSY4801 |
| Honours |
Year module |
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: The purpose of this module is to equip students with knowledge and skills to be able to: identify fundamental dimensions of research methodology in the field of History; develop an understanding of research methods and their theoretical underpinnings within the field of History; comprehend appropriate and applicable research methods and techniques to different areas of specialisation within the field of History; and begin to practise historical research with an understanding of research methods and methodologies. |
| Forging Southern African Identities – HSY4803 |
| Honours |
Year module |
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 24 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: To enable students to understand how images and identities in southern African history have been shaped or ‘forged’, and to make them aware that ethnicities, communities and ‘nations’ are not historically given and unchanging, and that the perceptions of historical figures are frequently manipulated. These processes are illustrated with case studies of the San or ‘Bushmen’, the life of Sara Baartman, the Xhosa cattle-killing, Shaka and the Zulu, and missionaries as cultural ‘brokers’. |
| Themes from Modern South African History – HSY4804 |
| Honours |
Year module |
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 24 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: To enable students to gain an understanding of the major themes in the history of modern South Africa (particularly liberalism, Afrikaner nationalism and black resistance to white minority domination) and to appreciate the importance of these themes in shaping the history of the country. |
| Terrorism in Global History – HSY4806 |
| Honours |
Year module |
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 24 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: Qualifying students will be able to understand and interpret historical aspects and events of important contemporary trends. Students will also be able to analyse the challenges of political, social and cultural diversity within an historical analysis of terrorism. In analysing terrorism, students will be able to identify, select and apply appropriate analytical frameworks based on relevant theoretical models within the context of history. |
| Africa in the World: Historical Perspectives – HSY1511 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 5 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Purpose: Qualifying Students will gain an understanding of major developments in the history of Africa and the world from the 17th century to the early 21st century, and will also acquire an appreciation of the critical place of Africa in the history of the world. |
| Southern Africa Until the Early 1800s: Encounters and Transformations – HSY1512 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 5 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Purpose: Qualifying students will gain an understanding of the major developments and changes in the history of Southern Africa in both the precolonial and the colonial periods up to the early 19th century by engaging with and analysing a wide range of sources, and will acquire multiple perspectives on the importance of this period in the shaping of modern South Africa. |
| Themes in the 19th Century History: Power and the Western World – HSY2601 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 6 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Pre-requisite: HSY1501 & HSY1502 or HSY101D & HSY102E or HSY1511 & HSY1512 |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to acquire a broad knowledge of the history of the Western world in the 19th century by means of a study of socio-economic change, the use of power politics and the expansion of western influence and control over other societies. |
| Early State Formation, Slavery and Colonial Conquest in Africa – HSY2602 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 6 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Pre-requisite: HSY1501 & HSY1502 or HSY101D & HSY102E or HSY1511 & HSY1512 |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to gain an understanding of early state formation, the spread of Islam, slavery and colonial conquest in Africa to the end of the 19th century. |
| Transformation in Southern Africa in the 19th Century: Colonisation, Migration, Mining and War – HSY2603 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 6 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Pre-requisite: HSY1501 & HSY1502 or HSY1511 & HSY1512 |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to understand the complexities of colonial conflict and transformation in 19th century southern Africa by focusing on migrations, the mining revolution and the South African war. |
| Decolonisation, Independence and Social Change in Modern Africa – HSY3701 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 7 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to understand the factors which shaped the history of post-independence Africa, particularly socio-economic and political change, the debilitating development crisis and the impact of the HIV/Aids pandemic. |
| Themes in 20th Century World History: Towards Globalisation – HSY3702 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 7 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to gain an understanding of the making of a global world in the 20th century through a study of: the growth of a world economy; the age of the two world wars; Russia and the Soviet Union; confrontation between the superpowers 1945-1990; Japan; China and the remaking of Europe. |
| Globalisation – HSY3703 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 7 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to develop an awareness of the importance of globalising trends and their impact on South African communities through reflection on socio-economic, political and cultural aspects of globalisation, locating them within their local frame of reference and applying methodologies from a range of core disciplines, thus enhancing understanding of the importance of an interdisciplinary approach. |
| Modern South Africa: Afrikaner Power, the Politics of Race and Resistance, 1902 to the 1970`S – HSY3704 |
| Under Graduate Degree |
Semester module |
NQF level: 7 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
|
| Purpose: To enable students to understand the rise and consolidation of Afrikaner power up to the 1970s, the ideologies and policies of segregation and apartheid, and resistance against white supremacy up to the 1970s. |
