History and Politics BA

History core module:

History Workshop

What does it take to be a historian? In this module, you will study the process of historical research, learning discipline-specific methods and essential study and writing skills through close engagement with a historical text (usually a work of narrative non-fiction) linked to your tutor's research interests. You will develop skills in critical reading, historiography, essay writing, bibliographic techniques, and reflection.

The assessment for this module is aimed at giving you a strong foundation in the skills you will need throughout your degree and beyond: critical reading and writing, bibliographic techniques, and the ability to reflect on and articulate your skills as a historian.

20 credits

History option module examples:

Empire: From the Ancient World to the Middle Ages

Covering the period from the 4th century BC to the 15th century AD, this module invites students to explore the ancient and medieval worlds through the lens of 'empire'. It provides an introduction to ancient and medieval types of empire, their contacts with and legacies to each other, and the connectedness between East and West in this period. Using a wealth of primary evidence and drawing on corresponding historiographical debates, students explore what it meant to live in ancient and medieval empires, what kind of social, cultural and religious encounters they engendered, and whether there was any space for resistance.

20 credits

Land of Liberty? Rights in the USA, 1776-2016

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that men were created with 'certain unalienable rights'. Yet the new United States denied those rights to large swathes of its people. Examining themes which resonate powerfully today, this module explores American history as a struggle over how rights have been defined and debated, expanded and contracted, and secured and denied. Linking the history of ideas to the efforts of ordinary people, we will look at debates over liberty and slavery, democracy and disenfranchisement, capital and labour, integration and
segregation, gender and sexuality, nationalism and internationalism, and conservatism and liberalism.

20 credits

Paths from Antiquity to Modernity

The aim of this module is to introduce you to the broad structures of Western history from the end of the Roman Empire to the present day. It provides students intending to take History Single or Dual Honours degree modules with a common framework for the more detailed modules that you will be studying at Levels Two and Three. At the same time, it provides non-historians with a fundamental appraisal of the shape of the past, to which courses in other departments will readily relate. Our aim is to equip you with an understanding of the periodisation of western history and of the major transitions in the process of modernisation. In the process, you will become more critically aware of the essential conceptual tools that modern historians readily use to analyse the past. The module aims to provide the essential training in the skills and methods needed for University level historical study.

20 credits

The 'Disenchantment' of Early Modern Europe, c. 1570-1770

This module explores the fundamental shifts in mental attitudes and public behaviour that occurred in Europe between the age of the Reformation and the age of the Enlightenment. The central focus of the course will be the examination of the supernatural - religious beliefs, but also witchcraft and magic. You will explore the changing ways in which beliefs impinged on people's lives at various social levels. You will also have an opportunity to study the impact on people's world views of such changes as rising literacy, urbanisation, state formation and new discoveries about the natural world. All these will be investigated in the institutional contexts of state and church and the ways in which they sought to channel and mould beliefs and behaviour. This module enables you to understand how the early modern period is distinctive from and links medieval and later modern historical studies.

20 credits

The Making of the Twentieth Century

This module considers the twentieth century as a time that transformed the social and political order in the world, calling into question the role of the European powers in global contexts, and dramatically reorienting the relationship between states and societies. You will engage with case studies representing key themes in twentieth-century global history: imperialism and the processes of decolonisation; the challenges of building the postcolonial nation; revolutions and the emergence of new states; war, genocide and conflict; and the institutions of international order.

In addressing these themes, The Making of the Twentieth Century has a particular aim of counteracting prevailing tendencies towards Eurocentrism.  You will gain a considerable body of knowledge on the histories of Asia, Africa and Latin America especially.  At the same time, emphasis is placed on the empirical and theoretical grounds upon which competing interpretations rest in order to encourage you to develop critical awareness of the character of historical analysis.  More generally, this module aims to develop analytical, conceptual and literary skills through class discussion and written assignments.  Communication skills will also be emphasised in weekly seminars that will allow specific issues to be discussed in more depth, often with reference to primary source material.  Above all, the module seeks to stimulate an interest in history and an appreciation of cultural diversity.

20 credits

The Transformation of the United Kingdom, 1800 to the Present

This module explores the central political, social, economic, cultural and diplomatic developments that have transformed Britain since 1800. Unlike most of its European neighbours, Britain did not experience dramatic moments of revolution, constitution-building, invasion or military defeat; indeed the belief that the nation was set on a course of gradual evolutionary progress was central to many versions of British identity. This course examines how, when and why change occurred in Britain. Key themes include the transition to mass democracy; the impact of industrialisation; shifts in social relationships based on class, gender and ethnicity; and the rise and fall of Britain as an imperial power.

20 credits

Politics core module:

Analysing Politics

This module is about (1) politics, and (2) how to analyse it. More specifically, it involves (1) understanding how power and truth operate in the contemporary world; and (2) discovering different ways to research these dynamics so as to build compelling and rigorous accounts of the political worlds that we find ourselves a part of. Students will learn through a combination of lectures, seminars, and independent study; and will be assessed on the basis of an essay and online multiple-choice tests.

20 credits

Politics option module examples:

British Politics

This module will introduce students to key concepts and debates in British politics through an examination of post-1976 British political history. Each lecture will take as its starting-point one day in recent British history and will describe what happened on that day and what happened as a result of that day. Each of the seminars will then follow that discussion: paying particular attention to concepts and ideas within the study of politics which can help us make sense of those events.

20 credits

Introduction to Global Political Economy

This module provides an introduction to global political economy (GPE). It covers key mainstream and critical theories and considers critically what GPE is. Following this, the main focus will be on sketching the outlines of the global economy (past and present) by considering particular commodities. This provides a novel way to introduce the student to the major processes of global trade, finance and production. It also considers the political economy of race, class and gender as core theoretical themes that interweave the empirical examination of the global political economy, from roughly 1500 through to the 21st century.

20 credits

Introduction to Western Political Thought

This module provides an introduction to key themes and thinkers in Western political thought. It explores the different meanings of the nature of politics and the political in this tradition. One key theme will be the relation between human nature and politics. This will be explored through a series of deep conflicts between reason and desire, the state and individual, and the public and private. These conflicts are examined through the different visions of politics of a selection of ancient and early modern thinkers. The module will also engage with critiques of the canon of Western political thought itself, in particular from a postcolonial perspective.

20 credits

Gender and the World

This module aims to interrogate the role of gender and sex in shaping world politics. To do this, it asks how notions of masculinity and femininity shape our institutions, how gender might influence the political problems we prioritise and whose voices are taken seriously in developing responses to these problems. 

Students will answer these questions through the study of the politicisation of sex, the relationship between gender and violence, how current practices of gender are shaped by colonialism and a range of other timely topics that shape the world today. 

The module will allow students to develop an understanding of different approaches to gender, be introduced to key concepts from feminism and queer theory, learn to apply these ideas practically to a set of case studies and debate what the future of gender is in world politics. 

20 credits

Planet Politics

From the atmosphere to Antarctic ice sheets, the Earth has been fundamentally transformed by human activity: we now inhabit a ‘human planet’. At the same time, from mining and agriculture to modern patterns of resource consumption, humankind has become dependent on the very activities that have caused these transformations. 

Far from being automatic or inevitable, these transformations are deeply political on multiple levels – in their causes, in their consequences, and in the many arguments and differences over how to respond to them. 

This module will introduce students to some of this ‘Planet Politics’. It will consider questions such as: 

Are we on the verge of a planetary ecological crisis? 

Is capitalism the problem, or the solution? 

Are there just too many people? 

Is meaningful international environmental cooperation possible? 

What are the vested interests obstructing change? What forms of social resistance are appropriate? 

What is ‘environmental justice’? 

Examining both key environmental and resource issues and the main approaches to studying them, the module asks some of the biggest questions about life: how should we live, and what should we do?

20 credits

Political Violence

This module will provide students with an introduction to political violence and begins by engaging with debates over the conceptualisation of violence, and when violence should be understood as “political”.  It will then introduce students to debates over the causes and consequences of violence through an examination of specific topics, which may include:

histories of violence

terrorism

interstate war

settler-colonial violence

structural violence

slow violence

gender based violence

war ecologies

the politics of violence prevention

violent resistance

attempts to regulate violence.  



We will explore these themes by asking how violence is refracted through race, gender, ethnicity, and other forms of social difference. Students will have the opportunity to explore these topics through specific examples and develop the necessary skills to apply them in practice. 

The module will allow students to develop an understanding of the key theories, concepts, issues and themes in the study of political violence by:

understanding the debates on the conceptualisation of “violence” and what makes violence “political”

developing skills in critical analysis, writing, and presentation

developing the ability to apply theories and issues to specific cases of political violence

20 credits

Race and Racism in World Politics

Through historical and contemporary case studies, students will study how our world today has been shaped by historical events, many of which continue to inform current relations. We will discover how discourses around race, ethnicity, gender and class construct realities today, determining who rules and who is ruled, who lives and who dies. 

The module will give students a theoretical toolkit, including approaches from the majority world, enabling them to appreciate power and the political significance of silences in accounts of the global and political.

We will learn about the historical production of the idea of race; how it configured the world in particular ways; how race mandated the colonial project. However, the module will also go beyond race to think about colonialism and the identities that operate in conjunction with race including class, ethnicity, and gender, and how they can determine what type of life people can live or whether they can live at all. For example, they determine whether a child has the right to security, or has to risk losing life in the Mediterranean escaping violence at home. 

Students will also learn about resistance and efforts to construct a different and more just world. Through rich historical and contemporary case studies, students will learn how to connect theories to understand current affairs, drawing on thinkers from various backgrounds to counter some of the dominant narratives within international relations.

20 credits

The World's Wicked Problems

This module will introduce students to key international relations concepts and discussions. Students will be able to understand, analyse and reflect on some of  the most pressing issues in the international arena including: 

migration

climate change

poverty and global inequalities

sexual violence 

armed conflict 

This introductory module will equip students with the tools to continue engaging with more in-depth theoretical and empirical international relations discussions as they progress through their studies.

20 credits

History core modules:

20 credits each. Dual students will choose one of two core modules.

Historians and History

This course will introduce students to the most influential 'schools' of historical practice in operation in the second half of the twentieth century and which remain influential today. These include Marxism, the Annales school, quantitative history, history from below, feminist and gender history, and postmodernism, as well as English empiricism. Lectures will provide an overview of each approach, and discuss the historical context in which it emerged. In seminars, students will be taught to assess critically the opportunities and limitations of each approach.

20 credits

The Uses of History

This module explores the theory and practice of public history by providing students with the opportunity to communicate their scholarly work to an audience beyond the boundaries of our discipline. Students will articulate an aspect of their own historical interests to a non-academic audience and evaluate the use of history outside academic settings. The course will engage in debate about important questions facing historians in the present, and consider ideas about the role and purposes of History as an academic subject.

20 credits

History option module examples:

Option modules are 20 credits each. Dual honours students will normally take two modules from across our options and document options.

A Protestant Nation? Religion, Politics and Culture in England 1560-1640

On the accession of Elizabeth I, England became an officially Protestant country but the Church, State and laypeople did not necessarily agree about the nature of changes needed to accommodate the new religion. On the level of national government policy, we shall explore what governments expected from their subjects and how they attempted to secure religious conformity during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I. How far did anti-Catholicism define English identity in this period? Did authorities at the national and local levels disagree about how severely religious minorities should be treated?

20 credits

Asian Britain: Travel, Migration, Diaspora

It has been estimated that, by the early twenty-first century, more than 25 million peoples of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent were living in Europe, North America, Africa and Southeast Asia. This module aims to historicise this diaspora by examining how and why South Asians have criss-crossed the globe in increasing numbers from the nineteenth century: for pilgrimage, trade, service, indenture, learning, diplomacy, politics, performance, mission and employment. The focus will be on different experiences of travel, migration and settlement in Britain in the high and late colonial period (1858-1947) that anticipated mass migration in the post-war era.

20 credits

Becoming America, 1690-1763

This module investigates the proposition that modern America took shape in the period 1690-1763, prior to and, as we will consider, in many ways productive of the transformation often associated with the era of the American Revolution. The module will consider primary sources and associated secondary debates relating to five key themes: ethnic diversity and religious pluralism, geographic dispersal, the growth of domestic and international market economies, the emergence of popular, partisan politics, and the reconfiguration of notions of power, authority, and control. The module considers longstanding and emerging historiographical debates, including but not limited to the prevalence and manifestations of monarchical versus liberal political culture, anglicisation and colonial consumption, and geography/regionalism and periodization in colonial American history.

20 credits

Culture in Early Modern Europe

Culture is the key to understanding how societies thought and behaved in the past. Early modern Europe - a period of immense cultural change and conflict - is no different. This wide ranging module introduces students to ideas about culture and examines how cultural history has revolutionised what we know about the lives of men, women and children in Europe between 1500 and 1800. Building on a rich historiography and through a series of intriguing case studies, the module draws on wide range of sources - such as diaries, letters, and legal records, to printed works, art and archaeology - to enter into the many cultures of early modern Europe. The module explores issues like material culture, youth culture, cultures of protest, intellectual culture, and religious culture. It asks whether we can talk about different cultures of men and women and how cultures were affected by social and economic inequalities. It thinks about forces of cultural integration and pressures of cultural conflict. And it explores ideas of cultural change, and how these changes helped create the modern world.

20 credits

Decolonisation: The End of Empire & the Future of the World

The world was transformed in the twentieth century. A world of empires and colonies became a world of independent states. In this module we analyse this global transformation. Why did it happen - and how? How much really changed? For people around the globe - from imperial rulers in Europe to anti-colonial nationalists in the 'third world' - the crumbling of European empires was an opportunity to shape the future of their own communities and of the world. Sometimes negotiated, often violent, these hard-fought struggles over the future created the world we live in today.

20 credits

Disease, Medicine and Health Care in Early Modern Europe

Attitudes to disease and the body were often fundamentally different in early modern Europe. The aim of this module is to explore changing ideas about the human body, disease and health care across Europe across a broad periosd from its late medieval roots to the new science of the seventeenth century. Developments in public health care are explored, such as the development of hospitals, along with the impact of new ideas emerging from Renaissance Humanism and from the Scientific revolution. We will make wide use of contemporary texts, including herbals, recipe-books, health manuals, and case histories.

20 credits

Empire, Sexuality and the Family in Modern Europe

The last two centuries have witnessed the dramatic transformation of family life and sexuality across Europe. The experience of empire, both at home and in overseas colonies, played an essential role in that transformation. This module considers how empire shaped European debates about and experiences with sexuality and the family, including questions about race, religion, gender, marriage, childhood and family structures. We will examine developments on the ground both in the metropole and in colonies. Not least, we shall explore the shadow of empire in twentieth-century policies on and debates about sexuality and family life, from National Socialist eugenics laws to international human rights debates about protecting families and children of refugees. In doing so, we will connect a rich body of historical writing about the family, sexuality, gender, law and empire.

20 credits

Fascism 1918-1945

This option studies the rise and fall of European fascism between 1918 and 1945. The aim is to account

20 credits

From the Pharaohs to Alexander the Great: The Battle for the Ancient World

This module examines the ongoing battle for dominance in the ancient Near East between the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks. From the outset of the Iron Age (around 1000 BCE) until Alexander the Great swept in from Macedonia to conquer the whole of the known world in 330 BCE, four empires rose and fell in the area now known as the Middle East. In the midst of all these powers lived ancient Israel—the small yet strategically located society that produced the texts known as the Old Testament. The module explores the key political, military, religious, economic, and social events that shaped these empires, shifted the balance of power between them, shaped their sacred texts, and made parts of these societies iconic symbols of the ancient world.

20 credits

From World War to Cold War: Europe 1945-1968

This module examines the social and cultural character of Europe after the personal and political traumas of the 1930s and 1940s, focusing on developments in France, Italy and West Germany. Its purpose is to provide a stimulating and wide-ranging introduction to a key aspect of post-1945 European history, encouraging students to consider the history of post-war Western Europe as a unity, and highlighting the similarities between states. Similarly, it deliberately transgresses the boundaries between political, economic, social and cultural history. Topics will include the end of World War II, consumption and affluence, debates about Americanisation, and the changing nature of politics and society during the 1960s.

20 credits

Gender and Sexuality in Modern Britain, 1850 to the Present

Through lectures and seminars, this course offers an overview of the history of gender and sexuality in Modern Britain. We will examine political, social, cultural and economic change from the perspective of gender relations and constructions of gender, as well as shifting understandings of sex and sexual politics from the Victorian period of alleged sexual repression to moments of liberation resulting from two (or more) so-called 'sexual revolutions' in the 20th century. We are interested, in equal measure, how women and men experienced, negotiated, and reacted to these changes in gender norms and sexual mores.

20 credits

Gender, Culture and Society in Britain 1650-1850

This course will give students the chance to consider one of the most important, exciting and original areas of recent historical research gender. The course aims to encourage students to consider broad questions and theories about gender history through one specific context: Britain between the years 1650-1850. It was during this period that Britain was transformed from an early-modern to a modern nation. Students will explore the comparative experiences of men and women during a series of momentous developments, including the Englightenment, the industrial revolution, the emergence of a class society, the emergence of popular participation as a significant feature in political life, and the rise of 'separate spheres'. The course will thus enable students to assess the part played by gender in the emergence of 'modern' British society. Students will be encouraged to explore how a focus on gender encourages new interpretations of the key economic, political, social and cultural developments of this period.

20 credits

Gender and the Georgians: Sex and Society in Britain 1714-1837

Eighteenth-century Britain witnessed great change: historians have argued for a 'revolution' in industry, the 'birth of a consumer society' and the emergence of a 'public sphere' of political debate; global trade expanded, towns grew, and new Enlightenment ideas flourished. In this context, gender identities and roles were redefined, understandings of the body debated, and notions of masculinity and femininity contested. This module explores these ideas about gender, and how they informed people's experiences, from polite fashions to the criminal underworld, bluestocking sobriety to drunkenness in gentlemen's clubs, and from 'subcultures' of homosexuality to the first 'feminists'

20 credits

Holy Russia, Soviet Empire: Nation, Religion, and Identity in the 20th Century

This module explores the twentieth-century history of Russia, the Soviet Union, and its successor states. Rather than approaching this turbulent period in history by focusing on the rise and fall of different political leaders (as is often the case in survey courses), we instead approach this subject through the prism of nation, religion and identity. The course probes the following questions: What did the 'Russian revolution mean for the multi-national empire created by the Romanovs? How far did the communist party manage to create a 'Soviet' identity, and on what was this based? Did the Bolsheviks attempt to create an atheist society succeed? And what happened to 'Soviet' identity when communist leaders began to lose their grip on power in the final decades of the twentieth century?

20 credits

Imperial Germany, 1871-1918

The aim of this module is to introduce students to the study of Imperial Germany and its position in the controversial interpretations of the 'peculiarities' of Modern German History, ie the structural continuities leading the the rise of National Socialism and its seizure of power in 1933. The module will cover topis crucial for an understanding of these debates, such as the party system and electoral culture, the structure and sociability of the middle class, the forms and impact of social militarization, and the emergence of radical nationalism. Particular attention will be paid to the confessional conflicts and identities and to the First World War

20 credits

Intoxicants in Early Modern England

The module looks at the uses and abuses of intoxicants in England during the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This includes `old world' intoxicants, such as wine, beer, and ale, as well as `new world' commodities like tobacco, chocolate, coffee, and tea. The module introduces students to the economy of intoxication, and the importance of intoxicants to domestic trade and global expansion; to the role of intoxicants in medical practices; to the places, spaces, rituals, and conventions of consumption; and to importance of intoxicants to the early modern state and political culture.

20 credits

Life Worth Living

What does it mean for a life to go well? How does one live life well? What is a flourishing life? These questions have shaped intellectual endeavour for millennia. Life Worth Living explores approaches to these questions through engagement with diverse traditions/thinkers including classical Greek philosophy, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Existentialism, Marx, and Nietzsche. The module includes historical analysis of these traditions, visits from individuals whose lives are shaped by them, fieldwork to discuss the ideas beyond the classroom, and assessments to help students develop their own vision of a life worth living.

20 credits

Media and Popular Culture in Twentieth-Century Britain

This module will explore ways in which the press, the cinema, and radio and television broadcasting shaped politics, society and culture in twentieth century Britain. The first half of the module will examine the historical development of each of the major media forms and discuss the different types of content that they provided. The second half will explore a number of key issues, such as the impact of the media on the evolution of modern democracy, the media's role in reflecting and shaping identities such as class, gender and ethnicity, and the media's contribution to the emergence of a consumer society.

20 credits

Religion in an Age of Terror: Ancient Texts and the Making of Modern Israel.

This module will look at the origins, growth and development of conflict and violence in the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), in order to provide a historical perspective on the roots of contemporary religious violence. The focus of the module will be a case-study on the conflict in Israel/Palestine (especially between 1947-67). Primary source analysis will be of the Bible/Quran (and related material), and the documents relating to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Related topics will include: theories of religious violence; religious terrorism; politics and religion; and the roots of religious 'fundamentalism.'

20 credits

Revolution, Reform and Crusade in 11th-c. Europe

This module explores one of the most dramatic and debated centuries in European history. Beginning with the apocalyptic resonances of the year 1000, the module then examines the evolving political framework of the period, with special attention to the role of bishops and queens. It next explores the transformation in Europe's economy, before comparing and analysing the two major historiographical approaches to this puzzling period: church reform and feudal revolution. The course then considers the place of Judaism and Islam in eleventh-century Europe, and concludes with Europe's growing involvement with the wider world, putting the First Crusade into full context.

20 credits

Rome and its Empire (14-235 AD)

This module provides an introduction to the themes, sources and methods involved in studying the Roman empire at the height of its power, between the consolidation of a monarchical style of government at the death of Augustus and the beginning of this government's `crisis' in the third century. It draws on a wide variety of sources, including narrative history, letters, legal texts, inscriptions, coinage, architecture and artefacts. The module particularly focusses on traditional and current scholarly debates surrounding the `Romanisation' of the vastly different territories under Roman rule (stretching from Hadrian's wall to the Euphrates), the relationship between local and Roman identities, as well as definitions of Roman forms of `imperialism' and strategies of cohesion.

20 credits

Shell-Shock to Prozac: Mental Health in Britain

This course charts the history of psychiatry and mental health in Britain. We start at the First World War, with the large-scale management of psychiatric casualties (shell-shock). We will look at the uptake of psychoanalysis in interwar Britain, contrasted with 'extreme' asylum treatments such as lobotomy and insulin coma therapy. We shall then gauge the impact of the National Health Service from 1948, the closure of the asylums, and the impact of new drug therapies (including the iconic Prozac). Finally we shall analyse the rise of patient activism, and the emergence of new 'epidemic' illnesses such as depression and self-harm.

20 credits

Slavery and Abolition in the United States

This module explores slavery and its critics in the United States. Focusing mostly on antebellum America - the three decades before the Civil War - we will move from the daily struggles over life and labour on the plantation to the place of slavery in national politics and international trade. Students will explore the character of the slave community, the relationship between master and slave, and debates over the rights and wrongs of the `Peculiar Institution'.

20 credits

Social Crisis and Political Change in England, 1550-1640

England experienced rapid social and economic change in the two generations before 1640 and these changes had a considerable impact on the development of the state. This course examines political and administrative responses to increasing poverty, migration and urbanisation, as well as responses to death and epidemic disease. It will also consider government attempts to foster growth in both the domestic and international economy. These initiatives were also shaped by changing visions of government and good order, and the course will consider the role of these ideas in defining social problems and appropriate responses to them.

20 credits

Spain, 1917-1982

The primary aim of this course is to introduce students to the study of Spanish history and to prepare them for more advanced study, particularly of modern European history. The restoration of the monarchy in 1875 marked the beginning of an extraordinarily turbulent century of Spanish history, which is dominated by the Civil War of 1936-39. Against a background of far-reaching government corruption, the weapons of political terrorism became increasingly prominent and a cyclical pattern of escalating violence and brutal repression culminated in a bloody Civil War and the subsequent military dictatorship of General Franco. The role of the army will be examined as will the nature of the Franco regime, together with the opposition forces of anarchism, socialism and Basque nationalism.

20 credits

The Battle for China's Future, 1839-1949

This module explores a century in which nationalists and imperialists fought over China. We will begin by looking at how the Qing empire, having expanded China's frontiers, confronted the 'semi-colonialism' of foreign powers and bloody domestic rebellions. After covering the Qing's fall in the 1911 Revolution, we will examine different designs for national integration on the part of warlords, reformers, and radicals, and consider the civil wars that followed. China's history in this period is sometimes told as a straightforward story of Eastern response to Western impact. But in introducing you to China before Communist rule, we will consider a more complex story of innovation, exchange, accommodation, and resistance, as the Middle Kingdom's dynastic rulers and their republican successors tried to meet foreign and domestic challenges, balance conservatism and modernization, and redraw their country's social, political, and geographic boundaries.

20 credits

The Export of England: Seventeenth Century Trade and Empire

This module considers the commercial and territorial expansion of seventeenth-century England. It examines how England's commerce was transformed from the largely bilateral cloth trade with Europe conducted by mercantile corporations, to a multilateral commerce conducted under several conditions (the 'navigation system, 'free trade', joint-stock companies). These changes coincided with the foundation of North American and West Indian colonies, building on earlier experiences in Ireland, and the course will consider their developing relations with the metropolis. Throughout, the focus will be on whether these changes were a consequence of deliberate 'mercantilist' state policies, or of the initiative of thousands of individuals.

20 credits

The Fall of the Roman Empire in the West

This course will explore one of the classic problems of world history, conventially seen in terms of 'decline and fall', but recently reinterpreted in a more positive light with a new emphasis on 'transition', 'transformation', and the cultural diversity of a period now generally known as Late Antiquity. These themes will be explored through a wide range of informative and entertaining primary sources and a lively historiographical debate. Students will acquire a good general awareness of the last century of the western Roman empire (no prior knowledge of this period is required), but will also explore a number of important comparative themes in history such as authority, community and identity, why empires exist, and how they end.

20 credits

The Family in Late Antiquity: Romans, Barbarians and Christians

This module examines how family concepts and family life were affected by the two phenomena that changed ancient society beyond recognition: Christianisation and the establishment of `Barbarian¿ kingdoms on Roman territory. To study the period of late antiquity from the point of view of the family is a particularly fruitful way of understanding these changes, as for most late antique men and women their family was their most immediate and most important life experience. Throughout the module we will explore crucial aspects of the late antique household: settlement patterns, family finances, intergenerational relationships, marriage, gender roles, childhood and forms of family commemoration. We will pay particular attention to strategies families developed to safeguard their identity and their livelihood at a time of major social and cultural upheaval.

20 credits

The French Third Republic, 1870-1940

This course will introduce students to French history from the fall of Napoleon III until the Second World War. The emphasis will be on the major political debates which emerged during the period, especially ideological struggles over whether France should be a republic or monarchy. Some of the questions to be explored include French attitudes towards democracy and the nation, the rivalry of Church and State, anti-semitism and the Dreyfus affair, the rise of socialism and the labour movement, the domestic ompact of the First World War, the inter-war period, and the Popular Front of the 1930's.

20 credits

The History of American Foreign Relations

George Washington famously warned against 'the insidious wiles of foreign influence' in his farewell address in 1796. But history has challenged any idea of the United States as a self-contained, bounded nation. Rather, the U.S. has played an active role in world affairs and has been profoundly shaped by events and people outside its borders. This course surveys the history of the U.S. in global context, beginning with America's first forays into overseas expansion in the late nineteenth century. We will cover both the major foreign policy moments and trends in U.S. history ;wars, government initiatives and interventions abroad, interstate diplomacy 'as well as the less formal encounters, migrations, and transnational exchanges that constitute American foreign relations. Primary and secondary source readings, lectures, and discussions will pay particular attention to the intersections between changes at home and developments abroad.

20 credits

The History of Terrorism

In the aftermath of 9/11 and 7/7, the rhetoric of the war on terror has been one of the most significant political vocabularies of the twenty-first century. Yet, terrorism is not a new phenomenon: the history of the modern world, particularly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has been marked by violent challenges to political authority by non-state actors. This module will consider in detail the phenomenon of terrorism in a historical setting, considering various manifestations (geographically, chronologically and ideologically) as well as the related areas of state terror and counter-terrorist strategies.

20 credits

The Making of Modern India, 1780-1965

Modern South Asian history has been an exceptionally fertile field of scholarly exploration, with many new insights and theoretical developments emerging from this field. This module will study the recent historiographical trends while looking closely at several historical developments during the period of British rule and the immediate post-colonial period. The module will be divided into four parts: the early colonial period, the late colonial period, the period of anti-colonial resistance or the national movement, and the post-colonial/Nehruvian era. The themes to be studied include: land/agrarian settlements, British expansionist policies, the revolt of 1857, the formation of caste identities, British famine policies, socio-religious reforms, Gandhian mass-mobilization, Islamic assertions, the national movement, Nehruvian socialism, partition of the subcontinent, and post-colonial legacies.

20 credits

The Northern Ireland 'Troubles' and Peace Process

This module introduces students to one of Europe's most recent - and deadly - intra-state conflicts. The 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland, c.1968-98, were marked by the persistence and seeming intractability of a conflict that contained national, ethnic and religious dimensions. With the paramilitary ceasefires in the 1990s, a new era opened; but difficulties remain in moving from an absence of violence to a genuine peace. Students will consider the conflict as a low-level civil war within the United Kingdom, as well as a dispute over sovereignty. The module covers the competing political and paramilitary groupings and various initiatives to enhance peace.

20 credits

The Rise of Rome and its Empire (c.500-90 BCE)

This course will look at the political, cultural, and economic dimension of Roman imperialism (500 BC-90 BCE), the relevant primary sources and the current historiographical debates. Firstly, we will study the motives of Roman aggression and the causes for their success. Secondly, we will also look at the ways in which the Romans understood and conceptualised their imperial practices. Thirdly, we will consider the role of the other Italian peoples in the Roman imperial project, and how the peninsula underwent processes of integration and cultural change that was instrumental to, but not necessarily bound with, Roman imperial expansion.

20 credits

The Welfare State in Britain, 1900-2015.

Although 1948 is remembered as the birth of the British welfare state, the involvement of the government in the wellbeing of its citizens has a far longer history. In this unit, we will explore the gradual evolution of British welfare practice and policy from 1900 until the present day. We will analyze the shifting relationship between citizens and the state in modern Britain, drawing both on historiographical and primary sources. We will examine how debates about class, gender, race and immigration informed the nature and extent of welfare provision over the past hundred years. In doing so, we will set the birth, growth and decline of the British welfare state alongside debates about the nature of citizenship in modern Britain.

20 credits

Tolerance and Dissent in Europe (12th - 16th Centuries)

Different religious faiths have coexisted in Europe for centuries. Yet religious violence occurred repeatedly across Europe until the 18th century. Historians have largely focussed on the policies implemented by political and religious authorities in explaining these events. While addressing group culture in general and the contributions of social groups to the institutionalisation of values in a religious context, the seminar aims to trace the possibility and the limitations of religious pluralism in Europe between the 12th and the 16th centuries. This long term perspective will contribute a novel approach to the history of the Reformation.

20 credits

Trumpism: An American Biography

Donald Trump's election, commentators claim, was unprecedented as well as unexpected: a break with more than two centuries of custom. Yet closer scrutiny of American history suggests Trump is no aberration. The module will interrogate the U.S. past to better understand the present, looking at the likes of populism as a political language, whiteness as a psychological wage, masculinity as a path to high office, protectionism as an economic policy, and deindustrialization as a political spur. By asking historical questions about the roots of Trump's rise, we will situate the American present in a complex and often painful past.

20 credits

Two Germanys, 'One People'? Central Europe, 1945-1990

In 1989-90, German 'reunification' brought together populations changed by 40 years of different lived experiences, within borders that had not bounded any previous German state. This course examines the social, political, and cultural history of East and West Germany in comparative perspective, focusing on how they related to one another as well as to pre-1945 German history. Special emphasis will be placed on relationships with European neighbours, allied superpowers, and migrant populations in order to show how contemporary Germany has been shaped by transnational processes and how non-Germans have likewise helped define what it now means to be 'German'.

20 credits

Understanding the Aztecs: Life and Death in Early Sixteenth-Century Mexico

Human sacrifice has cast a long shadow over the history of the Aztecs, obscuring the complexity, sophistication and compassion of the distinctive society which dominated central Mexico in the early sixteenth century. But the Aztecs' unique island-capital of Tenochtitlan was not only a centre for spectacular religious bloodshed, but also a sophisticated metropolis, home to a civilised society of highly educated individuals and close loving families. Taking a principally ethnohistorical and cultural approach, this module examines life in Tenochtitlan on the eve of its shattering conquest by the Spanish invaders whose records are also the principal source for Aztec history.

20 credits

History document option examples:

Document options are 20 credits each. Dual honours students have the option to take one document option module.

History document modules have a narrower focus than our standard option modules and usually cover a specific event, a movement, or a moment in time. They help you develop your skills in the use and analysis of primary sources which will be invaluable as you progress through your degree.

1066 and all that - the Norman Conquest of England

This course will introduce students to the most influential 'schools' of historical practice in operation in the second half of the twentieth century and which remain influential today. These include Marxism, the Annales school, quantitative history, history from below, feminist and gender history, and postmodernism, as well as English empiricism. Lectures will provide an overview of each approach, and discuss the historical context in which it emerged. In seminars, students will be taught to assess critically the opportunities and limitations of each approach.

20 credits

1968 in Western Europe: Rebellion and Upheaval

`1968¿ is an emblematic date, signifying political upheaval and mass demonstrations, strikes, cultural rebellion and protests against the war in Vietnam. The module will analyse the significance of 1968 as a dense sequence of events which affected many aspects of social, political and cultural life in Western European societies. The module will focus on selected political incidents and their cultural and artistic reflections in France, England and Germany, and explore some of the political controversies surrounding the events of 1968. It will draw on a wide range of primary sources (both textual and visual), including pamphlets, eyewitness reports, and songs.

20 credits

Appeasement, the Munich Crisis and the British People

The conduct of foreign policy in Britain in the late 1930s and the policy of appeasement in particular have been matters of sustained historiographical debate since 1945. This unit introduces students to some of the key sources pertinent to the discussion through a series of linked lecture workshops and seminars. These highlight the shifting debates between the 'Guilty Men' and the anti-appeasers, and the diplomatic perspective, but we also consider how the Press, the British public, men and women, and various political parties responded to the Crisis and understood their position as the Second World War loomed.

20 credits

Barcelona and the 'Tragic Week'

In 1900, artistic innovation and social conflict were juxtaposed in Barcelona. Rebuilt in the Art Nouveau idiom known as Modernisme, the bourgeois city was challenged by a burgeoning anarchist movement. Spectacular events, including the 'Tragic Week' itself, saw Barcelona renamed the 'rose of fire'. Students will examine how public space is contested, looking at architecture and urban planning as well as the representation of the marginalised and dispossessed. These were the anarchists, whose methods changed from bomb-plots to education and syndicalist organisation. Textual sources will be used to explore this anarchist sub-culture and the growth and importance of anticlerical riot.

20 credits

Coercion and Consent in the Third Reich

This course will introduce students to sources and literature that explore the relationship between state and society in Nazi Germany. With particular emphasis on exploring the extent to which support for the regime resulted from coercion or popular consent, it aims to give students a nuanced understanding of the nature of National Socialism, its appeal and effectiveness as well as its contradictions and limitations. Students will consider documents and interpretations that consider `resistance' and `collaboration', which will aid their analysis of the choices and constraints that shaped the relationship between the Nazi state and society.

20 credits

Global Lives: South Asian Travel and Migration in the Age of Empire

By the early twenty-first century, more than 25 million peoples of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent were living in Europe, North America, Africa and Southeast Asia. This module aims to historicise this diaspora by analysing letters, diaries, and travelogues. These sources reveal how and why South Asians have criss-crossed the globe in increasing numbers from the nineteenth century: for pilgrimage, trade, service, indenture, learning, diplomacy, politics, performance, mission and employment. The focus will be on different experiences of travel, migration and settlement in the high and late colonial period (1858-1947) that anticipated mass migration in the post-war era.

20 credits

Guilty Men? European Leaders and the Origins of the Second World War

This course will introduce students to the most influential 'schools' of historical practice in operation in the second half of the twentieth century and which remain influential today. These include Marxism, the Annales school, quantitative history, history from below, feminist and gender history, and postmodernism, as well as English empiricism. Lectures will provide an overview of each approach, and discuss the historical context in which it emerged. In seminars, students will be taught to assess critically the opportunities and limitations of each approach.

20 credits

Jane Groom's 'Extraordinary Scheme': Disability and the body in the Transatlantic World c. 1800-1900

This document option takes as a starting point Jane Groom's emigration scheme to send white, working-class, deaf people from London to Canada and establish a deaf colony in North America. The scheme is used as a springboard to think about issues of disability and the body in the nineteenth-century Transatlantic world. Topics covered include: institutionalisation, immigration restrictions, deaf separatist demands for a `Deaf State' in the USA, eugenics, and medical and social attitudes towards disability and the body. The course draws on a range of primary sources including: newspapers, memoirs, propaganda pamphlets, immigration legislation and medical and scientific treatises.

20 credits

Match of the Day: The Nika Riot of 532

This course will introduce students to the most influential 'schools' of historical practice in operation in the second half of the twentieth century and which remain influential today. These include Marxism, the Annales school, quantitative history, history from below, feminist and gender history, and postmodernism, as well as English empiricism. Lectures will provide an overview of each approach, and discuss the historical context in which it emerged. In seminars, students will be taught to assess critically the opportunities and limitations of each approach.

20 credits

Murder in the cathedral: the Becket Affair

On 29 December 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally murdered in his cathedral by four knights of his King and one-time friend, Henry II. In the space of ten years, a close friendship had been ruined, and Thomas' stubbornness, flight to France, and untimely death created additional tensions for the English king. This document option investigates events surrounding Thomas' death and the emergence of his cult. It asks how a minor squabble became a continent-wide cause célèbre, forcing Henry into an act of ritual humiliation to clear his name while ensuring that Thomas' memory lived on.

20 credits

Russian Revolution 1917-18

This course will allow students to explore the Russian revolution, through a close study of sources from 1917-18. A tight focus on these years will enable students to grasp some of the complexity not only of political events in St Petersburg, but also of the social tensions and rifts across the whole of Russia. Through a close reading of primary sources, students will be able to reflect independently on how Soviet and Cold War narratives of the revolution can now be challenged. Sources will include propaganda posters and films, works of art, popular songs, graffiti, peasant petitions, and workers' letters.

20 credits

Tenochtitlan, City of Blood and Flowers: Aztec society in the early sixteenth century

This course will introduce students to the most influential 'schools' of historical practice in operation in the second half of the twentieth century and which remain influential today. These include Marxism, the Annales school, quantitative history, history from below, feminist and gender history, and postmodernism, as well as English empiricism. Lectures will provide an overview of each approach, and discuss the historical context in which it emerged. In seminars, students will be taught to assess critically the opportunities and limitations of each approach.

20 credits

The Easter Rising: Living, Fighting and Dying in 1916

The rebellion in Dublin at Easter 1916 was a moment of profound crisis. For a week, rebels occupied key buildings in central Dublin, having proclaimed an Irish republic. After their surrender, sixteen leaders of the rebellion were executed, inaugurating a new martyrology and prompting a wave of public sympathy. This document option will explore the broad range of perspectives on the Rising, including those of civilians, rebels, and those tasked with its suppression. Drawing on plentiful digital resources (memoirs, diaries, official inquiries, and witness statements), this document option will uncover what it was like to live through that landmark event.

20 credits

The Gunpowder Plot

The Gunpowder Plot provoked endless debate at the time and in following centuries over the precise nature of the plot, its objectives and the degree of government complicity. The answers to these questions lie in a rich but ambiguous body of primary sources written by the government and its apologists, by Catholics, and by other observers. This course will enable students to analyse all these types of source, and to address systematically the problems of source analysis and interpretation that they present, while building up a detailed understanding of the problematic position of Catholics in late Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

20 credits

The Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858-85

Britain's 'Irish problem' has long roots. This document module examines one of the most important violent Irish organisations that challenged British sovereignty in Ireland. Founded in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) (or the Fenian movement, as it was also known) was a transatlantic movement dedicated to the overthrow of the British state in Ireland. Fuelled by hatred for the British after the dreadful Famine in Ireland of the 1840s, the Fenians constructed a sophisticated organisation that was part secret society, terrorist cell structure and propaganda machine. It was the early forerunner of the Irish Republican Army. This document option investigates aspects of Fenianism from a range of angles. Using sources written and produced by contemporaries, we will consider the dynamics of the IRB and its place within nineteenth-century Ireland.

20 credits

The Medieval Inquisition

The Inquisition - an extraordinary court instituted by bishops from the 13th century to judge heretics and encourage their return to the Roman Church - marks an important development in medieval history and has played an essential role in modern perceptions of the Middle Ages. By focusing on some of the best known sources of the Inquisition, which have been important in recent historiography as well as contemporary fiction (The Name of the Rose), this document option will help students reflect on how a better understanding of the Middle Ages and a critical questioning of modern prejudices can benefit from each other.

20 credits

The Myth of Venice

Historians usually debunk fabrications, but myths can themselves be the focus of historical study. This module explores the Myth of Venice, its production, diffusion, and reception. Venice was celebrated as the ideal republican government, but it was also the city of state terror and seductive `oriental¿ luxury. Students will examine a wide variety of sources and develop the skills required for their interpretation: descriptions of the city by Venetians and foreigners; political tracts; maps, paintings and sculpture; theatre and literature. The course concludes by considering how these myths have endured and influenced the writing of Venetian history.

20 credits

The Putney Debates, October 1647

Following the first English civil war there was political stalemate over the post-war settlement. By late 1647 there were calls for revolutionary political change, not least at the famous Putney debates. They came at a crucial moment in the development of the revolution, and successive editors between 1891 and 2007 presented the records of the debates in varying contexts in order to reveal the fundamental significance of the revolution. This module explores the background to the debates at Putney, what was said, and also considers how different editions of the debates reflect the shifting significance attached to the English revolution

20 credits

The Ten Commandments

This module examines the Ten Commandments, perhaps the most well known `legal' code in the world. Through the close study of key primary sources from the Hebrew Bible and the cultures that informed its writing, all readily available in modern English translation, the module explores the ancient Near Eastern context for these commands, the four texts in the Hebrew Bible that might be given the name Ten Commandments, and the role these texts played in the political, social, economic, and ethical aspects of ancient life.

20 credits

The Welfare State in Britain, 1900-2015.

Although 1948 is remembered as the birth of the British welfare state, the involvement of the government in the wellbeing of its citizens has a far longer history. In this unit, we will explore the evolution of British welfare from 1900 until the present day. Drawing on newspaper reports, documentary film and television, diaries, memoirs, charity records, and local government sources, we will analyze the shifting relationship between citizens and the state in modern Britain. We will examine how debates about class, gender, race and immigration informed the nature and extent of welfare provision over the past hundred years.

20 credits

Politics core module:

Political Analysis: Research Design and Data Analysis

This module provides students with an introduction to research design and methods for analysing of political phenomena. The module encourages students to reflect on how they conceptualise, design and analyse the political world. This involves exploring the relationship between theory and empirical political research. The module explores various techniques used in the analysis of empirical political research, with particular emphasis on the collection and analysis of quantitative data.

20 credits

Politics option module examples:

Contemporary Security Challenges

This module examines a series of key contemporary challenges to international security. It addresses debates about the changing nature of security, analyses some of the causes of conflict and the development of new security threats, and assesses some of the ways in which states seek to manage these threats. A range of approaches are examined in order to provide students with a theoretically-informed but policy-relevant understanding of security-related issues in the twenty-first century.

20 credits

Human Rights, Power and Politics

The module introduces students to the big debates about human rights. It explores the achievements of the human rights agenda, as well as its failures. The module interrogates a number of important questions about the relationship between human rights and politics. How do human rights work in domestic and international politics? What are effective strategies for realising rights? What role do non-state actors play in the realisation of human rights? Finally, by focusing on the methodological and ethical challenges of researching and measuring human rights, the module makes space for equipping students for their own future research projects.

20 credits

Oppression and Resistance

This module considers oppression and resistance from a variety of perspectives. Although the Enlightenment sought to liberate individuals from social/political domination, it failed to address many forms of oppression at home and was bound to European projects of colonialism. Addressing these forms of violence has been the major project of post-Enlightenment thought and global social movements. This module gives students the historical, theoretical and empirical tools to understand modern oppression and resistance. It explores: the legacy of the Enlightenment, feminism, sexuality, racism, post-colonial and decolonial thought, intersectionality, and social movement case studies such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo.

20 credits

The Left: Past, Present & Future

This module considers the past, present, and future of 'The Left'. From its origins in the French Revolution, this movement has struggled to balance equality, liberty and solidarity. Implementing these values has given rise to many different stands of leftist thought, leading to debates between radicals and proponents of meliorism. This module gives students the historical, theoretical and empirical tools to understand 'The Left' as a continuing project. Core topics include: defining 'The Left', its origins and theoretical development, its relation to political economy, as well as the current state of the left in the UK and around the world.

20 credits

The Political Economy of Global Capitalism

This module will begin by providing students with an account of the major theoretical traditions which seek to interpret and explain the global political economy. These are liberalism and interdependence theory; mercantilism, nationalism and hegemonic stability theory; and marxism, dependency and world systems theory. It then explores different aspects of the contemporary global political economy - finance, development, trade and production - and ends by reviewing the intellectual debate about the meaning of globalisation.

20 credits

The Politics and Government of the European Union

This module will provide students with a working knowledge of European integration, and of the main institutions of the European Union, including the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the Parliament. The module consists of a series of lectures on the history and institutions of the European Union, and seminars to discuss issues raised in the lectures.

20 credits

Africa in the World

Africa has long been treated as a marginal part of the world, both historically and in relation to contemporary global politics. This module aims to take this misconception away by exploring the crucial role that Africa plays in the current world order and the way it has historically evolved. 

Students will be introduced to the political, economic, socio-cultural, and military of Africa’s international relations and be familiarized with the key actors, institutions and processes involved. 

We will look at how the slave trade and colonialism have shaped the modern world order, the global reverberations of African independence movements and pan-Africanism, and how continuing unequal relations are expressed in, amongst others, the politics of debt and military intervention. 

The module will also analyse Africa’s relations to emerging global powers, such as China. To analyze these issues, the module will equip students with a range of theoretical and conceptual tools from the field of international relations, drawing to a considerable extent on the work of African thinkers.

20 credits

Chinese Politics

This module explores the political development of China from the end of the Qing Dynasty up to the present day. The core themes animating this module centre on China’s continuous quest for modernity, the transformation of domestic politics, economics, and society, and China’s changing position on the international stage. 

It covers a range of topics including:

the 1949 revolution and the Mao Zedong era

the post-1978 reform and opening-up era

recent changes under Xi Jinping

Students will be expected to think critically about the transformation of China, including the main forces that shaped it, as well as the domestic and global implications.

20 credits

Tackling the World's Wicked Problems: theoretical tools and applications

Rising poverty and inequality within and between states, increased droughts, flooding and environmental degradation, armed civil conflicts and war, infectious diseases, gender based violence, institutionalized racism, food insecurity are just some of the pressing problems that the world faces today. 

What solutions are there? 

What sources of knowledge can we draw on to develop ways forward to tackle such problems? 

This module will present students with a variety of theoretical perspectives and tools, such as Postcolonialism, and Green Theory, that seek to address the various ‘wicked problems’. Students will be tasked with critically evaluating different International Relations theories and their applications, assessing their utility and ability to practically solve the most pressing problems in world politics. 

Global problems arguably require global solutions, and therefore global sources of knowledge. This module will also introduce students to ‘non-Western’ perspectives such as ‘Chinese IR’ and Ubuntu, in the process getting students to examine their ‘problem-solving’ capacities.

20 credits

The Making of The Modern Middle East

This module examines the major socio-economic and political dynamics that govern contemporary Middle East. 



Drawing on insights from anthropology, history, politics, political economy and gender studies this module explores key historical developments and political themes in the region and will provide students with historical and theoretical toolkits to analyse various political events in the Middle East. 

Students will learn how to:

use politics from below perspective

listen for multiple discourses and silences

contextualise voices and silences historically, politically, economically and geographically in wider regional and global power structures. 



The module will equip students with the conceptual and analytical skills to de-exceptionalise their understanding of Middle East politics.

20 credits

History option module examples:

20 credits each.

Short Dissertation

The dissertation in History is an exercise of 7,500-8,500 words in which students explore an individually chosen topic involving problems and issues derived from a module taken at level two or level three. It is expected to consist of research at a high level where interpretation and analysis will be of importance. The balance between primary and secondary materials will depend on the topic and an availability of sources. In each case students work independently under the guidance of a supervisor.

20 credits

Making History Public

This core module is designed to allow students the opportunity to produce a piece of public history. It will equip students with the skills required to effectively communicate their scholarly research to a non-academic audience, and develop transferable skills beyond the traditional academic skills of a History degree. Drawing on any aspect of their experience as History undergraduates, students will design and produce an accessible digital artefact presenting a topic or theme of their choosing. Students will be supported by workshops and seminars to identify suitable topics and develop communication and digital skills central to public history, and will also be encouraged to bring their extra-curricular skills and interests to this module. A virtual exhibition will showcase student work to the whole History community. In addition, students will submit an interpretative written exercise, situating and explaining the artefact they have created and analysing their experience over the course of the module.

20 credits

History thematic module examples:

Thematic modules are 20 credits each. Dual honours students have the option to take one thematic module.

A Comparative History of Revolution

This module takes a comparative approach to the study of Revolution as a way to gain a better understanding of significant transformation of the social, economic and political landscapes of entire societies, to question underlying assumptions regarding values and legitimacy, as well as to understand and assess the vocabulary of revolution which has come to permeate political language. By comparing different case studies, students will have an opportunity to engage with the rich and stimulating historiography in this area and to formulate their own interpretations of a subject that touches on significant questions about change and power.

20 credits

Cities

This module explores key historiographical and theoretical approaches to the study of cities and the ways that historians can apply these ideas in practice. It adopts a comparative analysis that requires students to consider a range of cities from antiquity to the post-modern era. Students will have the opportunity to engage with the rich and stimulating interdisciplinary scholarship in this field, to pursue their own lines of research, and to formulate their own interpretations of a subject that is central to the nature of `civilization'.

20 credits

Decolonising History: Empires, Colonialism and Power

This module examines the rise and fall of empires as processes that shape our contemporary world. It considers the growth and governance of empires, decolonisation struggles, and the telling of imperial history from the perspective of colonised and coloniser. In approaching this history from multiple vantage points, this module asks: who held power, particularly over knowledge production, both during empire and after empire's end? Drawing upon diverse historiographical traditions, and examining a wide range of time periods and places, we will question the centrality of empires in the telling of global history. In doing so, we will bring the past to bear on contemporary debates about race, globalisation, migration, and decolonisation. This module is, above all, about what it means to decolonise history, society and the academy.

20 credits

Money, Power and Society

This module takes a comparative approach to the history of debt in societies across time. Students will have the opportunity to engage with and formulate their own interpretations of a subject that raises significant questions of historical and contemporary relevance: the nature of money; the ethics of lending and borrowing; markets, trust and institutions; the role of the state; globalization and finance capital. The module adopts an interdisciplinary approach, in which historical examples are related to theoretical perspectives from sociology, economics, anthropology and literary theory.

20 credits

The Family

The family is one of the most important forms of social relation across historical periods and places. But this seemingly 'natural' form of social organisation has a diverse history, as households and familial relationships were shaped by their cultural, economic, and political contexts. This module examines historical family structures and familial relations, from affection and care to authority and exclusion. We pay particular attention to gender and race, considering how intersecting identities shaped the family as we know it today. Drawing on anthropology, feminist history, and queer history, we also consider non-biological kinship: from 'chosen families' to surrogacy.

20 credits

History Special Subject examples:

Special subjects are 40 credits each. Dual honours students have the option to take one special subject.

Anarchy in the UK? Radicals, Democrats and Revolutionaries 1830-1886

This module examines the history of radical political culture in the United Kingdom from the Reform Act of 1832 to the Home Rule crisis of 1886. The re-imagining of the British state within radical political cultures is the chief focus, with particular emphasis on the democratic ideals projected from a variety of perspectives, liberal, socialist, republican, and Irish nationalist. There were many radical proposals to transform the British polity; from a desire to extend the franchise to republican activism, the many layers of radicalism in the United Kingdom will be assessed within wider political, cultural and intellectual contexts.

20 credits

Art, Power and History: Ideals and Reality in Renaissance Florence I

With its rich artistic life, financial innovations, and vibrant humanist culture, Renaissance Florence had a lasting influence on the rest of Europe. This module makes full use of the extremely rich visual and documentary sources available to historians (including paintings, sculpture, architecture, diaries, memoirs, tax and electoral records, sermons, histories, political writings) to explore the complex interrelations of social, cultural and political history. In doing so it provides the essential context for the understanding of key figures such as Machiavelli, Bruni, Alberti, Guicciardini, Vasari and Savonarola. 

20 credits

Breaking up (in) the Carolingian Empire

In 858, an event took place that scandalised Europe. At a public assembly, a Frankish king, Lothar II, accused his wife Theutberga of the most outrageous crimes, in order to secure a divorce so he could marry his mistress Waldrada. Yet despite his best efforts, and to everyone's surprise, Lothar failed to get his way - and so his kingdom spiralled into crisis, exacerbated by Viking attacks, interfering popes and predatory uncles. This Special Subject concentrates on this crisis, and the rich documentation it produced, to investigate the politics, society and culture of early medieval Europe under the Carolingian kings.

20 credits

Britain's Social Revolution: Welfare, State and Society, c. 1870-1914

This module introduces students to the powerful debates about and important reforms targeted at a variety of `social questions' which haunted Britain from the late nineteenth century until the First World War. It demonstrates how new forms of knowledge, ideas about social solidarity and political and social movements shaped how Britons addressed issues such as poverty, unemployment and public hygiene. By analysing a wide variety of primary sources, including visual sources, this module will examine competing visions about the future of the nation and, in particular, what role the state should play in determining that future. 

20 credits

Cannibals and Christians: Mexico and Spain, c.1492-1600

This module examines the extraordinary clash of cultures which occurred following the `discovery¿ of America, and the reciprocal relationship which developed between Europe and the `New World¿ in the sixteenth century. Focusing on the sixteenth-century discovery, conquest and settlement of Central and South America, especially Mexico, the module will address such themes as the nature of the encounter, the intellectual and cultural impact, trade and exchange, migration, evangelisation and empire. The module addresses the encounter from a wide range of perspectives, evaluating the encounter from the viewpoint of sailors, conquistadors, priests, historians, explorers, missionaries, administrators and the indigenous people themselves.

20 credits

Capitalism and Identity in 19th-century Britain (1)

How did people see themselves and the world in nineteenth-century Britain? The module emphasises the way local transformations and struggles were linked to global processes: emergence of class identities, shifting ideas about gender roles, and discourses of racial, religious and scientific superiority in a globalising world. We will study a broad range of primary sources, including textual, material and visual culture: from rival models of change and their popular reception; to the way identity was bound up with new consumer goods and fashions; to visual representations of empire and the impact of humanity upon the environment.

20 credits

Contested Visions: Imagining an Empire in mid-nineteenth century Britain

British expansion did not result from a single, coherent imperial strategy, or a fit of `absence of mind¿; it developed from specific cross-cultural encounters and competing colonial visions. Some saw the Empire as a place of adventure, others an opportunity for Christianisation, still others as a `New World¿ in which to build a Greater Britain. These visions were always contested and challenged both overseas and in Britain. This module explores these contested visions and the impact of empire at home. It is structured around different `visions of empire¿ including those of humanitarians; missionaries; settlers; travellers; scientists and the British public.

20 credits

Eating, Meeting and Greeting in the Medieval West

In 1095, Urban II delivered a sermon that kick-started the Crusades in a small city in the south of France; 120 years later, King John would seal a document limiting his powers in front of his barons at Runnymede. Separated by time, geography and audience, both these assemblies nevertheless shaped the medieval world. They are two of the many meetings between 1050 and 1250, which presented opportunities for face-to-face discussions and law-making, trials of justice and wit, as well as celebrate, feast, and mourn. This Special Subject investigates the purposes and events of these assemblies in the Central Middle Ages. Historians insist on separating `Church¿ and `State¿ in the Middle Ages, but this module looks at both to understand how medieval European government functioned, and how rulers employed the theatre of ritual and the growth of bureaucracy and law to influence their subjects and increase their power.

20 credits

Emotions and identity in Britain: from 'stiff upper lips' to 'snowflakes'

This module introduces students to an exciting area of social and cultural history: the emotions. In the early twentieth century, Britain confronted the emotional disorders of warfare, the repressed and sexualised emotions of Freudian theory, and the prevailing culture of 'stiff upper lip'. Today our emotions are everywhere, poured out on social media: we are endlessly exhorted to talk about and investigate our emotional states, wants, drives and needs. This shift has been spectacular and far-reaching, involving psychology, welfare, education and empire. This course helps students to understand how this has happened - and how our emotions are now an integral part of gender, racial and sexual identities in Britain.

40 credits

Empire of Faith: The Making of Global Catholicism, 1500-1700

Modern Catholicism is a global religion: one billion Catholics now live in Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Yet global Catholicism was forged five hundred years ago, as Catholic missionaries travelled to nearly every corner of the world between 1500 and 1700. In this course, we consider how Catholic belief was shaped in encounters and exchanges with people across the early modern world: from the dreaming lodges of the Huron people in Canada, to Confucian scholars' courts in China. We will explore the ways in which a global religion was created in an exchange between centre and periphery.

20 credits

Ending the Cold War

Based upon a wealthy variety of primary sources recently released and for its most part digitalized and/or published, this course will explore why and how the apparently secure world collapse in 1989. Topics will include: Germany, Ostpolitk and CSCE; Superpower détente; The Fall of Détente: Afghanistan and Euromissiles; Reagan, SDI and Third World Interventionism; The Polish Crisis, 1980-1981; the Second Cold War and intra-German rapprochement; the Soviet Union's systemic crisis and imperial overstretch; Gorbachev Political Thought and Reform; Gorbachev, Reagan and Nuclear Weapons; Gorbachev's Eastern European policies; The Road to Maastricht and EU.

20 credits

Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Britain, 1923-1945 I

This module examines three inter-related issues in order to assess the impact of fascism in Britain between the wars. Making full use of one of the best archives for this purpose in the country held here in the Special Collection of the University Library, first we examine the political organization, the ideas and the culture of 'native' British fascism from its inception in 1923 to the Second World War. Second, we move on to explore active and ideological resistance to British fascist and racist organisations by a loose coalition of Communists, Socialists, Liberals and even Conservatives, as well as the resistance mounted by those religious and ethnic groups most affected by fascist racial provocation and violence. Third, we will consider how contemporary interpretations of fascism, and formal and more informal relations with the European dictatorships, contributed to the National Government's policy of appeasement on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to the greater definition of what was quintessentially 'British' about Britain's war aims with the outbreak of World War Two. We will approach these topics by analysing primary source material, including political pamphlets and propaganda, newspapers, public records, memoirs, oral testimonies, visual material, film and recordings, and novels.

20 credits

Forced into Being: How Involuntary Migration Created Ancient Israel

Religious conflict and migration shape the Middle East now, just as they have for nearly 3000 years. Case in point: ancient Israel and its sacred texts-known widely as the Old Testament-are the product of a rather small satellite nation whose primary experiences included subjugation by larger military powers, resistance against the potential influence of foreign religious practices, and forced migration from its land that resulted in life among unfamiliar peoples. Indeed, the Old Testament is a collection of texts written by involuntary migrants to involuntary migrants, often about involuntary migration. This special subject examines how the migratory experiences of this relatively small society shaped some of the most important religious texts in history, which are sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and remain influential factors in the international conflicts of the 21st century Middle East.

20 credits

From Julius Caesar to Augustus: Rome's Revolution (89 BC-14 AD)

This module will analyse the profound political, cultural, and social changes that led to the downfall of the Roman Republic and the establishment of a new regime by the victorious Caesar Augustus, a period of turmoil called the Roman Revolution by some modern scholars. We will aim at understanding these changes in the context of ongoing cultural and political processes that had affected the city of Rome in the previous decades. This was a period marred by internal political violence, and for which we have an impressive wealth of contemporary documents written by some of the protagonists of the events. 

20 credits

Half Slave and Half Free: The Origins of the U.S. Civil War

Between 1861 and 1865, around a million Americans died in a conflict that concluded with the defeat of the breakaway southern Confederacy and the emancipation of the South's enslaved people. Why that war happened is one of the central problems of U.S. history. To some, the struggle signifies an `irrepressible conflict' between two rival civilizations, but for others, blundering politicians and a dysfunctional democracy brought on an avoidable crisis. Through looking at men and women, blacks and whites, slaves and citizens, and politicians and voters, we will try to understand why - as Abraham Lincoln put it - `the war came.'

20 credits

Humanitarianism, Internationalism and the British Empire, 1900-2000.

What is humanitarianism? How has it shaped, and been shaped by, beliefs about Britain's role in the world? Why, in the eyes of politicians and the public, did British interests, and the interests of `humanity' so often coincide?The unit analyses British humanitarianismfrom 1900 to 2000. We situate British humanitarianism within the history of the Empire, globalization, U.S. ascendancy, and Cold War tensions. We consider traditionally disenfranchised groups - women, children and imperial subjects - as objects and agents of humanitarian interventions, and ask whether humanitarianism can be considered as `political' both in the past and in the present.

20 credits

Humour and Laughter in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Laughter is fundamental to human experience. Yet, the things we see fit to laugh at and how that laughter is thought about, tolerated, suppressed or celebrated, have all varied with time, place and culture with compelling possibilities for historians. Eighteenth-century Britain was a golden age of humour, brimming with bawdy jestbooks and a surfeit of satirical texts and images. It even witnessed the invention of caricature as we know it. The module explores this comic material-and ideas about it-to investigate fundamental shifts in manners, morality and political participation in the period, and the historiographical debates surrounding them.

20 credits

Makers of a New World: Merchants, Scholars and Commoners in Late Medieval Europe I

This module explores the changes which helped to create a 'new world' in Europe in the period c. 1350 - 1450, tracing the economic, social, political, intellectual, cultural, and religious developments which would support the 'discovery' of a wider world, and its colonisation from the 16th century onwards. Students will assess the contributions made by merchants who established a capitalist market economy, but also shaped the social life of their cities as patrons, with particular focus on the Italian and German city-states; by scholars who colonised the past by 'rediscovering' the Classics; and by commoners, who became increasingly involved in politics.

20 credits

Mao and the Making of Twentieth-Century China

In 2015, citizens in Henan Province erected a 120-foot gold statue of Mao Zedong, which was swiftly torn down on government orders. Why does Mao still provoke such strong feelings? To some he is a monster: history's greatest mass murderer. But recently historians have painted a richer picture of Mao's China, trying to understand its social character, political culture, and role in Cold War rivalries. Focusing on the origins, character, and legacy of Maoist rule, and devoting most of our attention to the period between the declaration of the People's Republic in 1949 and Mao's death in 1976, we will use translated primary sources, a rich visual culture, and a burgeoning scholarly literature to explore Maoist thought and its critics; major upheavals like the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution; and everyday life under `Communism with Chinese characteristics'.

20 credits

Merchants, Mariners and Migrants: The English Overseas, 1570-1624

The period c.1570-1624 saw a reorientation of England's global position, as increasing numbers of English people began to venture into unfamiliar regions. This course charts the nature and significance of their travels. We will encounter merchants in Europe, the Ottoman Empire and the far east, settlers and conquerors in Ireland and America, explorers in the frozen seas of the far north, and pirates in Spanish America. The latter part of the course focuses on the foundation of England's first `successful' American colony, Jamestown. Throughout, we consider the motives driving these ventures, and the complex nature of the encounters that ensued.

20 credits

Permissive Britain? Social and Cultural Change 1956-74 I

This module explores British society and culture as the nation moved from an era of austerity to one of unprecedented affluence. Key topics include the impact of affluence on class and gender relationships, the emergence of a national youth culture, changes and continuities in sexual behaviour, and debates about immigration and race. The unit encourages students to assess the significance of reforming legislation that relaxed the censorship regime, decriminalised homosexuality, enabled easier access to abortion, liberalised the divorce system and abolished capital punishment, examining the arguments of those who resisted, as well as those who championed the `permissive society'.

20 credits

Popes, Caliphs, Emperors, 1095-1229 (1)

The Crusades are known as religious wars, in search of the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem. Yet they were only part of the complex interactions between peoples of different politics, religions, and cultures in the medieval Mediterranean basin. Using sources including histories, letters, buildings, art and mosaics, this module will examine how religion intertwined with medieval politics, culture and society. From Iberia to Jerusalem, and from Italy to Africa, we will investigate religion’s role in expressing political power and in the everyday life of the people who lived there. How was religious authority received, understood, and contested by contemporaries?

20 credits

Renaissance and Popular Culture in Early Modern England

Renaissance is often often associated with `high culture', `popular culture' with `the masses' or `the people': different cultural worlds which grew further apart over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This module challenges this categorisation and model of cultural change. It introduces students to a much more encompassing idea of Renaissance as an educational and cultural movement which not only looked to revive the learning and wisdom of the `ancients', but also translate that knowledge into English and communicate it to as wide an audience as possible. The first half of the module explores the writers and statesmen committed to this agenda, the ideology which drove them, and the tools at their disposal: for example education, theatre, language, popular print. The second half of the module then considers different aspects of early modern life affected by this Renaissance: not least notions of state, society, and family; gender identities and relations; astrology, witchcraft and medicine; citizenship, governance, and warfare; colonialism and global commerce; drinking habits and telling jokes; and attitudes towards the self.

20 credits

Resistance & Liberation in South Africa: Gandhi to Mandela

This module analyses resistance to segregation, apartheid, and white supremacy in South Africa. Drawing upon memoirs, oral histories, novels, films, speeches, news reporting, online databases, and document collections, we begin with the non-violent campaigns led by Mohandas Gandhi in the 1900s against the segregation of Indians in South Africa, and end with Nelson Mandela's election as president in the country's first non-racial democratic elections in 1994. We will explore the inspirations, nature, and effects of a wide range of forms of political, social, and cultural resistance by opponents of white supremacy - from ordinary people to elite politicians - both inside South Africa and around the world. 

20 credits

Slavery in the American South, 1789-1861

By 1861, some four million African Americans were enslaved in the American south. This module explores the lives of these enslaved people. We examine the roles, relationships, and experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, through themes such as social and cultural life, work, the family, community and conflict, truancy, escape, and violence. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources - from the perspectives of enslaved and formerly enslaved people, as well as their enslavers - we focus in particular upon the varied ways in which African Americans resisted both their enslavers and their enslavement.

20 credits

Solidarity, Sabotage, Students: Protest in Europe from 1968 to 1989

This module will explore the history of protest since 1945 within and beyond Europe, with a view to understanding social movements and how they seek to effect political change. Protest research in history and the social sciences has focused on widely varied actors, forms, traditions, and issues, leading to very different conclusions about why and how protest occurs. This course will emphasise the merits and limits of particular approaches for answering different historiographic questions such as those about long-term continuities between movements, the synchronisation (or not) of protest across borders, and why protest activity appears to rise and fall dramatically. The course will examine movements from the 1950s to the early 2000s, focusing in particular on pacifism, student protest, feminism, `New Social Movements', international solidarity, and globalisation.

20 credits

South Asian Muslims in the Age of Empire, 1850-1950

Writing in 1888, the Viceroy of India, Lord Dufferin, described South Asia's Muslims as `a nation of 50 million, with their monotheism, their iconoclastic fanaticism, their animal sacrifices, their social equality and their remembrance of the days when, enthroned in Delhi, they reigned supreme from the Himalayas to Cape Cormorin.' How far does this colonial representation capture the diverse lives and experiences of South Asian Muslims under British rule? Were they a `nation' or even a cohesive community before India's Partition in 1947? To what extent did Dufferin's understanding of Islam fuel reformism, cultural expression, global movement and nationalist politics?

20 credits

Stalinism and De-Stalinisation, 1929-1961 I

This module explores Russian history from 1929 - when Stalin's fiftieth birthday was celebrated across the Soviet Union and he was heralded as Lenin's great successor - to 1961 when his body was removed from the Red Square Mausoleum under cover of darkness. It examines the rise, reign and - posthumous - fall of the Soviet leader and the nature of the new world he sought to create. The module will explore not only the ideological and political dilemmas of the ruling elite, but also the diverse experience of ordinary citizens who faced both new opportunities and new ordeals during a period of radical transformation. 

20 credits

The American War in Vietnam, 1945-1975

The American War in Vietnam tarnished the United States' international reputation, bitterly divided the country, and continues to haunt US foreign policy. Yet, the war was much more than simply an episode in American history. Rather, it was a global event. New scholarship reveals the role of Vietnamese, French, Chinese, and Soviet actors, among others, while the political and cultural impact of the war extended beyond the U.S. and Vietnam. This module employs new scholarship and an array of primary sources, from government documents to fiction and film, to explore the American, Vietnamese, and international dimensions of the conflict. 

20 credits

The English People and the English Revolution, 1640-1651 (A)

This module examines the social and cultural impact of the civil wars and revolution in mid-seventeenth century England. The war, which grew out of irreconcilable political conflicts, was the most destructive ever fought on British soil. Responses to the war in turn created new political and social conflicts, leading to a revolution and Britain's only experience of republican rule. Drawing on the evidence of official publications, pamphlets and diaries, the module explores how the English people responded to the war and helped to make the revolution.

20 credits

The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry I

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the various debates on the origins and execution of the 'final solution' in Nazi occupied Europe during the Second World War.

20 credits

The Irish Revolution, 1912-1923

This module explores Ireland's revolutionary decade, from the Ulster Crisis of 1912 to the end of the Civil War in 1923. That period saw the demise of the Home Rule ideal, the rise of republicanism and the partition of the island amidst bloody sectarian and political violence. Among the issues examined are the paramilitarisation of political culture, the impact of the Great War and Easter Rising, the nature and dynamics of revolutionary violence, and the entrenchment of divisions - intra-communal as well as inter-communal. The controversial historiography of the Irish revolution, its place in public history and its cultural representations form an important aspect of the module. Above all, the sense of what it was like to live through a revolution, as a rebel, a policeman, a soldier or a civilian, is a key unifying theme of this module. 

20 credits

The Phoenix City: Rome in Late Antiquity (300-600) I

Drawing on literature, letters, laws, sermons, inscriptions, archaeology, art objects and material culture, this module will critically analyse traditional and recent approaches to the transformation of urban space and urban identity in late antique Rome between the reign of emperor Constantine (306-337) and the pontificate of Gregory the Great (590-604). Through exploring civic and religious building programmes; religious conflicts; urban administration; urban economy, demography and poverty; rituals of urban life; the cult of the Roman saints, and the rise of monasticism the module will assess the complexity of the shift of power from emperor to pope in late antique Rome.

20 credits

The Road to Civil War: England 1621-1642 I

This course aims to provide an intensive document-based analysis of the working of early Stuart politics on both theoretical and practical levels, and to use it to stimulate an informed evaluation of the roles played by a variety of ideological and political forces in provoking civil war. Particular attention is paid to the career and voluminous unpublished correspondence of one of the foremost and most tragic political figures of the period, Sir Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford. Strafford's unpublished letters, along with parliamentary debates, state trials, sermons, newsletters, and popular pamphlets will be used to tease out the private and public attitudes of both major political actors and the 'man in the street' towards the main political and cultural divisions of the pre-Civil War period.

20 credits

The Spanish Civil War I

The Civil War (1936-1939) has a resonance beyond Spanish national boundaries. Students will be expected to gain a detailed understanding of the political complexity of the Civil War and come to their own conclusions as to whether it was an international confrontation which took place on Spanish soil or a local conflict involving foreigners.

20 credits

The United States and the Cold War, 1945-1975

The Cold War shaped American foreign policy as well as domestic politics and culture for much of the second half of the 20th century. But how all-encompassing was the Cold War? How did non-state actors react to and influence the course of its development? And how 'cold' was the Cold War? This module will examine the Cold War with fresh perspective. We will revisit the traditional historiography, which focuses on high policy actors and U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. But we will also gain new insight from an emerging literature that challenges such a deterministic and elite framing of what was a global conflict that involved multiple actors at all levels of society, many of whom brought with them complex motivations that existed prior to, or outside of, the rigid Cold War binary. In addition to these secondary sources, we will explore a wide range of primary source material, from declassified State Department documents to Third World assertions of sovereignty to popular films and novels.

20 credits

The Weimar Republic - Laboratory of Modernity I

The history of Weimar Germany has often been portrayed as an almost permanent crisis and the ultimate demise of parliamentary democracy. But the Weimar Republic was more than just a polity and economy in crisis. It was also a laboratory of modernity, a site of permanent experimentation in politics, the arts and mass media, in gender relations and in attempts to built new communities. The module will examine key topics in the political participation and symbolic representation of this classical modernity. It will explore these issues in a broadly conceived perspective, drawing upon a broad range of contemporary source material, both textual and visual. 

20 credits

The West & the East in each other's eyes 1850-2000

The idea that the 'East' and the 'West' are fundamentally different in their thinking and values and are locked in a mutually antipathetic 'clash of civilizations' is an age-old one. It has been argued by European and Asian politicians and writers alike, by imperialists and anti-imperialists, 'orientalists' and their critics, and has been manifested in a range of approaches and ideologies, including 'Orientalism', 'Occidentalism', pan-Asianism, pan-Islam, and Samuel Huntington's notorious 'clash of civilizations' thesis. It has fed into both colonialist and anti-colonialist thought. This course is intended as a case study in the history of ideas. We will investigate how ideas of a division between 'West' and 'East' have been expressed and developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries and how they have been deployed by politicians in a range of different countries and contexts. We will also examine some of the more subtle, alternative formulations of East/West cultural difference, assimilation and appropriation that have been articulated in the same period. The course will encourage you to rethink how cultures relate to each other, and about what is distinctively 'Western' or 'Eastern' about political and economic organization, human rights, democracy and secularism. Can we really talk about 'East' and 'West' as meaningful categories, and if not, when and how did people start using these terms and why, and what does that tell us about how we should understand the world and write about it? In semester 1, after an initial introduction of the themes and questions of the course, the next 4 weeks ('the West looks at the East') will analyse Western accounts of the East. The second half of the first semester ('the East looks at the West') then undertakes a chronological and thematic analysis of the different ways in which Asian governments and writers have understood, analysed and critiqued the West and its values. The second semester ('the East looks at the East') concentrates on how Asian governments and thinkers have understood the East, and their views of how far it can be said to enshrine coherent non-Western values. As well as studying transnational movements (pan-Asianism, pan-Islam and the Non-aligned Movement), we will also study selected Asian writing on democracy, human rights, nationalism, and secularism up to the present day.
During the course we will be using a wide range of documents in translation - from constitutional debates, political tracts, government declarations, policy documents and educational literature, to travel accounts, speeches, letters, poetry and images.
The course is intended to help you to rethink how you understand Western and non-Western cultures and to provide you with a more informed sense of the roots and nature of current global geo-political and cultural tensions.

40 credits

The World of Intoxicants in Early Modern England (1)

Intoxicants were a key feature of early modern societies. This is as true for ‘old’ world alcohols like wine, beer, ale, and other fermented drinks as it is for ‘new’ intoxicants like opiates, tobacco, sugar, caffeines, chocolate, and distilled liquors that began to enter European diets after 1600 from the Levant, the Americas, and Asia. Focusing on intoxicants in England, this module considers a) the ongoing importance and, indeed, increasing significance of alcohols to culture, society, and economy over the course of the seventeenth century and b) the introduction and popularisation of new intoxicants over the same period.

Introductory reading:
David Courtwright, Forces of habit. Drugs and the making of the modern world (2002)
Jordan Goodman and Andrew Sherratt, eds., Consuming habits. Drugs in history and anthropology (1995)
Phil Withington and Angela McShane, eds., Cultures of intoxication (1995)

20 credits

Tools of Empire? Medicine, Science and Colonialism, 1800-1950

Western science and biomedicine have, for long, been seen as symbols and agents of progress. Research in the last two decades has, however, revealed their close ties with the history of colonial conquest and rule - so much so that scientific discoveries such as guns, steamboats, and quinine have been seen as `tools of empire`. This module will, however, go beyond this fact and discuss much larger questions of equal relevance. It will, for instance, deal with the question of the `consumption` of science in the colonies, the role of the colonies in constituting western science, the role of medicine in furthering colonial hegemony, the `reinvention` of traditional sciences such as Unani and Ayurveda under colonial influence, the relationship between scientific centres and peripheries, and post-colonial developments with respect to medical and scientific administration. In exploring these themes, the module will not limit itself to any particular region, but will draw upon readings from South Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

20 credits

Politics core module (choose one):

Dissertation in Politics

This module involves supervised research on an agreed topic. Students will meet with their module tutors and peers in five two-hour dissertation interactive lecture-workshops (10 hours) prepare and submit a formally assessed 1,000-word research proposal, undertake individual research and be assessed on the basis of a 8,000-word dissertation. Students will also undertake four individual supervision sessions with their dissertation supervisor at which objectives will be specified, their achievement monitored and general progress reviewed.

40 credits

Research Project 1

This module allows students to research and explore in-depth a topic studied on a semester one module. Students will meet with their supervisor individually, to undertake research and be assessed on the basis of a 5,000 word project.

20 credits

Politics option module examples:

Animals, Ethics and Politics

This unit explores the debates surrounding what we owe to animals politically. It introduces students to the main debates in animal ethics, and asks how they affect our political practices, norms, institutions and policies. Particular attention is focused on the tensions between animal welfare and other political values and goods, with students exploring such controversial policy debates as animal experimentation, animal agriculture, conservation and the use of animals for entertainment. The overall aim of the unit is to investigate the implications of taking animals seriously for current political practice.

20 credits

Public Policy and Democratic Politics

Recent years have seen a tide of pressures impact on policy makers. Fuelling distrust and disaffection with public policy making, populist politicians have blamed civil servants for alleged corruption. Political leaders have also pushed for fundamental changes in how states operate. From the bottom up, social movements have put pressure on policy makers to revolutionise racial and gender equality, and respond to climate catastrophe. Technological innovations confront policy makers with a new and alienating future.

Amidst a plethora of global crises, and with historically tight budgets and rapidly reducing timeframes, policy makers at multiple levels, from transnational bodies to local authorities, are now under extreme pressure to deliver. They need to find solutions for sustainability, stop pandemics, end inequality and protect fundamental rights. How can they make radical change happen? This module examines precisely this question. Students will gain a nuanced understanding of the pressures everyday policy makers face and how they manage these pressures with the aim of successfully implementing radical shifts in how we respond to the most pressing policy issues of our time.

 



 

20 credits

Britain and the European Union

The course seeks to make sense of: Britain's relations with the EU; the problems within UK politics associated with the European issue; and the Europeanisation of British politics/policy. The course will cover the pre-history of membership and accession. It will set out the analytical toolkit for understanding the UK's impact on the EU and then explore Britain's European diplomacy. It will also explore the EU's impact on the UK, using the Europeanisation literature to understand the impacts on British governance, its political forces and public policy within the EU. A short comparative section will put Britain in context.

20 credits

Britain in the Global Economy

To what extent does Britain's past development cast a shadow over its present and future?
By taking this module, you will look at British development from historical perspectives and trace the origins, the rise and the decline of Britain as a global economic power from the 18th Century to the present day. You will then focus on a number of core problems that have intensified within Britain since the 2008 global financial crisis, including Britain's dysfunctional economic model, its fraught relationship with Europe, the politics of immigration and culture, and contemporary constitutional challenges, such as the prospect of Scottish independence. It seems that Britain's status as a global economic power is entering its final years, so what comes next?

20 credits

Civilisation, Empire and Hegemony

With American power seemingly all powerful today, this unit provides a rethink of the origins of great power politics/economics. Mainstream Eurocentric theories in International Relations view great power politics/economics as having universal materialist properties. And they view America and Britain as hegemons that provide global public goods for the benefit of all. This module problematises this view by revealing the differing moral foundations and 'standards of civilisation' that inform the various directions that great power can take. It examines Britain and China in the pre-1900 era, contemporary America, Japan, and the potential role of China in the coming decades.

20 credits

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is the idea that the world should in some sense be understood as a single political entity. 

This module will engage with ‘cosmopolitanism’ from the perspective of normative political theory. It will start by discussing the historical origins of cosmopolitanism, from the Cynics in Ancient Greece to Immanuel Kant and will then move to a discussion of the contemporary wave of cosmopolitanism theorising that began in the latter part of the 20th century. 

There have been two core strands to this wave: 

claims about the global scope of justice

claims about the need for a global democracy

Both strands have come in for considerable criticism: 

Is justice really global in scope?

Is it an idea that belongs within the state or nation? 

Do we really need a global democracy, and is it feasible? 

Does cosmopolitanism imply a world state? 

Is the whole notion of cosmopolitanism dangerously imperialistic? 

During the module students will discuss all of these questions, and more.

20 credits

Corporations in Global Politics: Possibilities, Tensions, and Ambiguities

Corporations are ubiquitous, affecting everything from mundane individual consumption choices, to the investment decisions of both weak and powerful states. Importantly, their authority extends beyond the economic sphere and into political, as they shape and execute policies and activities for some of the world's most pressing problems. This module explores the multifaceted political roles of corporations, and challenges students to critically reflect on their implications. Drawing upon international relations, political economy, and global governance literatures, it analyses the corporation theoretically, but also empirically drawing upon diverse case studies ranging from environmental sustainability and development, to war-making and peacekeeping.

20 credits

Framing Politics? Economic Ideas as Political Weapons

Throughout the history of capitalism political battlelines and agendas have been set by economic ideas and forms of knowledge being used as political weapons to frame what can be said, done and thought by whom. In this module students will learn how political actors have used economic ideas across time to construct institutions and policies, empower and advantage certain social groupings over others, create shared understandings and expectations amongst citizens, and project (implicit) conceptions of justice. Students will come to an appreciation of how economic thought has shaped politics past and present, and how and why ideas change over time.

20 credits

Liberalism and its Critics

The aim of this module us to assess the state of contemporary liberal politics and political theory, and to address the question of whether liberalism is in retreat in the West. The course will provide students with an in-depth examination of key themes within liberal political theory (e.g. distributive justice, freedom, multiculturalism, neutrality, public reason) as a way of exposing them to the numerous variations within the liberal tradition. It will also examine and assess critics of liberalism (e.g. communitarian, republican, realist) as well as discuss several of the key contemporary challenges to liberal politics (e.g. the rise of populism, post-truth politics, identity politics, post-humanism, nationalism).

20 credits

Marx and Contemporary Marxism

This module will familiarise students with Marx's corpus and enable them to evaluate key historical processes-such as the development of capitalism and modernity, the birth of the nation-state and the international system-through a Marxist lens. The first part of the module surveys the development of Marx's thought against the background of the socio-economic and political transformations of the nineteenth century. The second part focuses on thematic issues, reviewing how Marx engaged with the questions of strategy, mobilisation, gender, culture, imperialism, and colonialism. This puts Marx and Marxism into dialogue with other critical approaches, including feminism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

20 credits

Narcopolitics

Drugs are big business and politically salient, yet their production, trade, distribution and regulation are understudied in politics. Narcotics are rooted in complex webs of public, private and criminal power, with diverse consequences for growth, development, security and health. This module explores this evolving panorama: it traces the political evolution of therapeutic/psychotropic substances from the opium wars to prohibition, before analysing the 'War on Drugs', the attendant creation of mafia violence, and the emergence of 'narco-states'. Later classes address contemporary experiments in legalisation and decriminalisation, the development of licit recreational narcotics industries, and the implications for the global prohibitionist architecture.

20 credits

Pandemics and Panics: Health, Security and Global Politics

In today's globalized world, infectious diseases and other health issues have increasingly come to be seen as security threats - a shift that has challenged traditional notions of what 'Security Studies' is all about. This module seeks to provide an understanding of the contemporary politics of health and security, identifying the health issues which have been seen as security threats and the major policy responses to them. The module locates health and disease within the key approaches to Security Studies (including state-centric and human security approaches), and requires students to critically engage with the politics and ethics of securitizing health.

20 credits

Parliamentary Studies

This module focuses on how parliaments and legislatures operate and is founded on the basis of theoretically-informed but policy-relevant teaching. It therefore attempts to provide students with a sense of why cultures, traditions and informal relationships matter as much (if not more) than formal procedures. Although the House of Commons and the House of Lords provide the main institutional focus for this module students will be encouraged to adopt a comparative approach whenever possible and to situate their analysis within an appreciation of the changing role of parliament within evolving frameworks of multi-level governance.

20 credits

Party Politics: Competition, Strategies & Campaigns

This module provides an in-depth analysis of party politics. It offers a detailed exposition of the multiple issues related with parties, looking at the interactions both within and outside parties. The module covers key aspects of party politics such as the different types of parties, their organization, party membership, types of party systems, political competition and issue positioning, campaign strategies, formation of new parties, the effects of cleavages, coalition formation, party financing and the number of parties.

20 credits

Peacekeeping, State-building and International Intervention

This module looks at the way international intervention has changed in recent years. It draws on a number of different areas - humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping, development and state-building. It draws these areas together by exploring what they have in common and how there has been a shift in the way that international intervention deals with these issues. In particular, the international community has moved from direct involvement towards a form of governance that operates from a distance by encouraging local ownership, capacity building and resilience.

20 credits

Political Psychology: The Personal Side of Politics

This module covers the major theories and research paradigms in the exciting subfield of Political Psychology. Rather than reviewing what happens in politics (e.g. who wins an election) or how it happens (e.g. who votes for whom), we will look at why it happens by studying the psychology of politics at the micro level (e.g. the personality of politicians), the meso level (e.g. the ideological and moral foundations of political parties), and the macro level (e.g. motivated reasoning, racism and prejudice, mass political behaviour and the influence of the media).

20 credits

Political Theory in An Age of Total War

This module presents an overview of the major figures and themes in twentieth century continental political theory, ranging temporally from Max Weber to Jacques Derrida. In reflecting on the dynamics of modernity and rationalization, contemporary European political thought responds to the atrocities of Europe's age of total war. Much of this work is an attempt to come to grips with reason and unreason in the capitalist, industrialized, mass democracies of Europe in light of the legacies of two world wars and the rise of totalitarianism. Key themes include: the legacy of the Enlightenment, the role of technology in modern life, the bureaucratization of politics, the possibility of human freedom, collective memory and forgiveness and the role of philosophy in the aftermath of mass genocide. We will approach this material both historically and hermeutically in order to assess the strengths and weaknesses of these responses to these problems.

20 credits

Politics and the Quality of Life

This module aims to provide students with an understanding of contemporary political debates on quality of life issues and their relation to philosophical traditions within and beyond the main British political parties. This includes analysis of how quality of life is defined and measured in different contexts and relates this debate to long-standing debates on poverty, social exclusion and social capital. Attention is paid to the quality of life aspects of public policies.

20 credits

Practical Politics: How to Make Policy and Influence People

This course will provide a practical, hands on account of how policy is formulated, implemented and why it sometimes doesn't work. Focussing on environmental politics, the course draws on the experiences of policy experts including civil servants, lobbyists and politicians. It will an assessment that mirrors tasks routinely undertaken by those within or seeking to influence government.

20 credits

Research Project 1

This module allows students to research and explore in-depth a topic studied on a semester one module. Students will meet with their supervisor individually, to undertake research and be assessed on the basis of a 5,000 word project.

20 credits

Research Project 2

This module allows students to research and explore in-depth a topic studies on a semester one module. Students will meet with their supervisor individually, to undertake research and be assessed on the basis of a 5,000-word project. The subject/specialised topic studied in Research Project 2 must be different to the topic studied in Research Project 1.

20 credits

Sex, Race and Death: Feminist Perspectives on War, Violence and (In)Security

This unit produces a critical take on war, violence and security from feminist perspectives. Particular attention is focused on feminist theories that foreground the interconnectedness or 'intersectionality' of different power relations, including postcolonial, transnational and queer approaches. How are different forms and sites of violence connected? How do technologies of gender, sex and race shape understandings of certain forms of political violence as lawful, legitimate and necessary? What are the gendered legacies of (ongoing) histories of colonialism and imperialism? What are the (feminist) ethics of researching and possibly reproducing violence and suffering? Among the themes we will explore are the erotics of conquest and slavery; military masculinities; sexual violence in conflict; private military and security companies; torture and surveillance; women as agents of violence; Orientalism and the War on Terror; human rights and international law; imperial feminisms and just war theory; occupation and resistance.

20 credits

Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict

This module will address when, why, and how widespread sexual violence occurs in armed conflicts. The module will
(1) examine how academics and international actors understand and research what sexual violence is and why it occurs in certain conflicts;
(2) assess the international efforts to prosecute and prevent sexual violence in armed conflict; and
(3) undertake in-depth case study analysis to assess the various long-term consequences of sexual violence in armed conflict for individuals, communities, and processes of reconciliation.
Resultantly the module will assess what can be done to address this security issue and its numerous violent consequences.

20 credits

Terrorism, Violence and the State

This module aims to provide students with an understanding of the nature and legitimacy of forms of protest against the modern state. In particular the module focuses on issues of contemporary terrorism. However, in order to understand the nature and motivations of terrorism it is necessary to understand the nature of the modern state and other, non-violent forms of protest such as civil disobedience.

20 credits

The Ethics of Political Leadership

This module investigates the ethics of political leadership via an engagement with the western tradition of political thought and contemporary analytical political theory. Its overall objective is to enable students to analyse and evaluate normative arguments on the significance and function of political leaders in contemporary politics. The module examines competing theories of leadership in their historical and intellectual contexts and a number of issues of contemporary ethical significance, including the problem of 'dirty hands', the nature of political integrity, and the ethics of political compromise. The approach is theoretical and philosophical and examples of political leaders will be used to highlight strengths and weaknesses of competing theories of leadership, and to emphasise their ideological assumptions and implications.

20 credits

The Making of the Modern Middle East

This module offers an interdisciplinary examination of the socio-economic and political dynamics of the modern Middle East by exploring the region's major historical developments from a non-Eurocentric perspective, and investigating how the region has been represented and analysed in the social sciences. Students will have the opportunity to reassess the imperial and colonial legacies by retracing the trajectories of state formation and economic development in the past two centuries. The overall aim is to equip students with the knowledge and skills to 'de-exceptionalise' the Middle East and enable them to study it as any other region in the international system.

20 credits

The Politics of Security

This module explores the changing character of security studies and global (in)security, examining the proliferation of discourses and practices of security, threat, and risk in contemporary society. It introduces a range of advanced theoretical debates about security, exploring key concepts (including discourse, practice, identity, emancipation, securitization, and risk) and how they might help us to make sense of security politics by looking at a range of cases (such as terrorism, energy security, religion, technology and development). It asks you to think critically about the function of security, and the ethical and analytical assumptions that shape how security is theorised/practiced.

20 credits

War, Peace and Justice

This module provides a practical and theoretical overview of contemporary war, peace and justice. It explores key conversations, issues and conceptual responses relating to: the challenges and ethics of researching war; the construction of ethics and notions of justice in war and peace; the politics of technology in contemporary warfare; the politics of peace, resistance and pacifism; the politics of war, memory and commemoration; embodied and emotional registers of war; and the politics of death and grievability. Students will explore the practice, experience, representation and cultural imaginary of war in the 21st century and consider implications for peace and justice.

20 credits

Water, Climate, Energy

This module explores the place of water, climate and energy in global politics. Human-induced global climate change is one of the central challenges - perhaps the single greatest challenge - of our age. It is a consequence, above all, of our insatiable appetite for fossil fuel energy resources. And many of its most serious consequences are projected to relate to water, from increased floods and droughts to rising seas. Moreover, water, climate and energy issues are deeply political, in both their causes, and their current and anticipated future consequences. Adopting a political ecology approach, this module introduces and investigates this politics.

20 credits