 So we're good to go? Good to go. OK, perfect. Well, hello, everyone. My name is Jada Karamursel. I'm a lecturer in modern Middle Eastern history at the department here at SOAS, as well as the convener for the MA History program. And I believe I'm not sure if they joined us yet, but we have Laura Messi with us, or will be joining us in a few minutes, a recruitment officer who can answer your specific recruitment-related questions. And we also will have Ekram Karim, who's a student ambassador and who can answer your student life-related questions. And I will be in the next half hour or so, I will be giving you, try to give you a brief introduction to SOAS, explain what we do here and what is unique about what we do at SOAS, as well as the department and overall the program as well. And this is the first thing I will do. And following that, I will be speaking a little bit about the program structure and your options, program options. And just really, the aim is to give you a glimpse of what it is like to study history at the MA level here at SOAS. And then we will just open up for your questions and a discussion will follow. And in the meantime, please, as I go along, please feel free to type your questions in the chat box. What I will do, I won't be able to see them as I talk, but I will go back to them and answer them as much as possible as I can. So as some of you already know, SOAS was founded in 1916 as a graduate-level teaching research institution. Its original name was actually SOS, a School of Oriental Studies. And Africa was added to it a couple of decades later in 1935. Initially, its primary aim was to train colonial officers, the British Empire that sent out to different colonial posts across the globe. But that aim was rather quickly dismantled by SOAS scholars, so as historians particularly emphasized as early as 1950s the importance of studying the history of Asian and African countries from their own perspective in their own terms and not through the framework of imperial history, imperial learning. So SOAS is a pioneer in its history, traditionally, in its quest to look at, focus on different parts of the world from their own perspective. And I think that's one of the things that makes the institution, particularly the department, a unique one in every way. So this quest still characterizes SOAS today, as I said, particularly the history department and makes it a special program. SOAS has the only history department in Britain, and as well as the US, that teaches history from the perspective of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. That means the department has the highest concentration of specialist faculty working on these regions. In any history program, any history department, you would have perhaps one or two faculty members who work on these regions. It's dominated by Western history, pretty much without exception throughout the programs in these countries and most other places as well. And SOAS's research facilities correspond with that concentration. SOAS Library, as you can see here, the picture of the library, is one of the world's leading academic research libraries for the study of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. And if you don't know where SOAS is located, it's right at the heart of Bloomsbury. When you consider the strength of the SOAS Library in combination with what surrounds SOAS, we have the Senate House Library. This is the Central Library of the University of London, which is literally next door to SOAS, as well as British Library, which is a 10-minute walking distance. In that sense, SOAS Library and SOAS as a research institution can be called a research power house in every way. That SOAS was founded as a graduate level institution shapes who we are, what we do, also at the program level. Unlike many other institutions, which started with undergraduate teaching, then added on graduate level programs, postgraduate study is and has always been at the heart of all teaching we do here at SOAS. So currently, there are more than 200 postgraduate programs running throughout the school and much more than that, many more than that, in degree combinations as well. So these give you an opportunity to study a subject in greater depth, combined with rigorous training in history, historical methods, which is done primarily through our core module of the program, Debating Past, Crafting Histories, a year-long course which provides this rigorous training of the craft. But not only that, these programs and program combinations also allow you to bring together other things, most notably languages, which you can study as either as part of your degree or as open option modules in support or in connection with your coursework. You can also bring together interdisciplinary and interregional expertise. I will talk about the program structure in a few minutes. So you can see how it works in practice as well. What also makes SOAS a special place is its emphasis in engaging with larger issues in our world today really is an important feature. SOAS scholars, including SOAS historians, work on a wide range of pressing issues, such as displacement, poverty, environment, and race, among other things. So for us, history is not something that has happened and ended in the past, but something that continues, that has continuities and has direct implications for the world that we live in today. So in that, our graduates move on to PhD programs here in the UK or the US or elsewhere to pursue academic careers. But also, in my sense, is that increasingly so, they also pursue careers in policy-related areas, working for governmental, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations as well. So there's that element to the study of history at SOAS too. So this is a very concise introduction or background information for SOAS as a school and for the department and the program in general. So now, let us move to take a closer look and more detailed look into the MA history programs and as well as the structures of those programs themselves. So there are currently two MA history programs based in the history department. These are the first of these is the main MA history program. And the second one, which I will speak in later in a few minutes, the MA history with intensive language study as a separate connectable separate program. So those of you who may have gone through the department web page may have noticed that MA history pathways existed at some point, which are the frameworks that asked required students to have a specific regional focus. You could do coursework in African history, Middle Eastern history, in East Asian, South Asian history, and write your dissertation in that specific or in relation to specific region. But as of this year, we drop these frameworks primarily to enable flexibility with your course choices but also facilitate transregional, transnational research coursework as well, which I think in my opinion is the most exciting, one of the most exciting things that you can do here at SOA. So you do not only look at the history of Asian African countries from their own perspectives, but also look at how these perspectives connected to each other, interacted with each other. And we especially support and encourage that type of approach to research and coursework and dissertation writing as well. So we no longer have regional pathways, but that does not mean that you cannot focus on one specific region, of course. It's a great flexibility how you build your program list of courses, a program of study in general. So the MA history program, you see the details here on screen, taken as a full-time basis, it is a one-year program that consists of 180 credits in total. 60 of these 180 credits is a dissertation, beacon of both programs, both MA history and intensive language programs, which is a 10,000-word research project that is expected to build heavily on primary source research. And another 30 credits for the core methodology course, debating pasts, crafting histories. This is a year-long seminar that meets two or three hours each week, and in many ways serves as the main hub for the MA history cohort. Not so much this year, unfortunately, as the teaching takes place online, but normally it really does work as the meeting point for the entire group every week, and it really works well in that sense. So in addition to the dissertation and the core module, you will need to complete 90 credit worth of taught courses, which you can choose from various different lists. You can see here there's a list A of courses and B, and then you have the open options. For list A courses, here you can see a list of it. Not all of them may run next year, but they will be replaced with equally interesting options. And the list A courses are mostly offered by the history department, but also those that are strictly historical in content as well from other departments. There is a list B which contains almost entirely ancient classical history courses and languages, which is a very short list that includes origins and development of yoga in ancient India, the Indian temple, the great tradition of Taoism, as well as such languages as Sanskrit and Akkadian, among others. And apart from these, which constitutes to go back to the structure, which constitutes the 90 credits of taught courses required for the degree, you have what are called the open option modules. These are basically all MA level courses offered throughout the school. And I put here, that list is quite long. And I put here only a few just to give you an idea. And again, not all of these courses may be running next year, but like I said, they will be replaced by other courses offered that are equally relevant or interesting. So the remaining 30 credits required for the program, you can just fill with 30 from among the open options that you choose from these courses. And last but not least, you also have a large array of taught language courses that you can take as an open option module as well. It doesn't have to be part of the degree. You can take them as open options. The list of language courses is also pretty long and comprises literally so many languages of the regions that so as studies, Arabic, Persian, Japanese, Chinese, Zulu, Swahili, Yoruba, Bengali, Urdu, so on and so forth. So you have these options you can make as part of your coursework. Now that I mentioned languages, this brings me to the other, the second MA history program we offer here at the history department. It's a program in which where you study languages as part of your degree. And here, you can see the available languages as Arabic, Japanese, Korean, et cetera. Currently, unfortunately, the program is running only for Arabic. And I think perhaps Persian as well may be mistaken about that because of the COVID situation because there are travel restrictions. So the summer schools, as part of these programs, had to be suspended. But at least some of these languages may be available later on if the circumstances allow. So you will have to just check back with us for updates in the coming months for the status of these languages. So this is a two-year program that has the same core structure as MA history with added intensive language as study, just both at SOAS and school as an institution abroad added on top of the MA program. It is basically the MA history program with the same requirements stretched over two years and has an intensive language study attached to it. So differently from the MA history program, you need to complete 315 credits in total. 120 of these would be taught courses the same amount as the MA history. And 90 credits taught language courses, 45 credits of study abroad, that language, and 60 credits from the dissertation. So for the year one, core course, debating past crafting histories applies to this program as well. You need to complete that during your first year in the program. And then 30 credits of regional automatic taught courses from the list A from history department or courses that are offered by the department or strictly historical, I'd say, and then combined with 60 credits of intensive language study at SOAS. This gives you enough preparation. These programs are open to beginners as well. Even if you begin that year, that intensive language study prepares you for intensive study abroad during the summer, at the summer school in an institution abroad. And when you come back for your second year, you follow up with advanced level language study. Again, at SOAS, it really requires 30 credits more. And then it's kind of reversed the first year. You continue doing your regional thematic courses, history courses, and open options. And you need to complete 60 credits of those. So you can see a chart of the requirements here. So the common and most important component of both programs, as you may guess, is the dissertation. It constitutes 25% of your final mark. And it equally requires at least 25% of your attention, energy, work at the program. And for that, you receive quite a bit of support in the form of not only the methodology course, debating paths, but also a dissertation workshop, as well as independent research essay course that you can actually write in preparation of your dissertation. So dissertation actually consists of two components. One is a dissertation plan, which is 10% of the mark. And then the dissertation itself, which is the 90% of the final mark. As I said, it is a major undertaking. It requires a lot of energy and work. And in that sense, it may be a little daunting at first sight. But in my opinion, it is also the most enjoyable part of the program, where you yourself write history and make genuine contribution to the field and to our knowledge of history. And I think it's very rewarding, nourishing, undertaking in every way. I guess, I mean, this is the end of my overview, my presentation, my talk. What I will do now is just stop sharing my screen so that I can see your questions. And we can just open this up for discussion. And before I go, stop sharing my screen, here's my name and my email address. Please feel free to reach out to me for later questions, for later updates in the coming months. So I have here Chris's question, independent research essay. This is an exercise. Basically, it is a medium-length essay that you write at the end of the two teaching terms. It's due at the beginning of the third term, which begins normally the end of April, begin May, which is associated with one of the courses that you take during your time here and write research and write your essay in connection with that. But that's really more in preparation for your dissertation research. It gives you an opportunity to work on research-related matters, the document basis, and literature. And then just take it as a practice for dissertation writing. Conor has a question. If you do not pass the intermediate language examinations, get put on a beginner's language course, can you be moved to the higher group in the second year? Well, absolutely yes. If you start with as a beginner, that is really for your benefit, in that sense. You don't really force it, especially when you're doing coursework. A language study may be really, really demanding. So by the time you come back from summer school, depending on how comfortable you are with your level of Arabic, you can just jump up to an advanced level. Of course, in connection or have to discuss this with your language instructor, and you decide together whether you feel comfortable with doing that or not. But absolutely you can choose your level when you come back from summer abroad.