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History |
The study of History at Keele presents students with the opportunity to work on aspects of British, European and World History at all three undergraduate levels. All modules are taught by specialists who contribute to the lecture programmes (one or two hours per week) and who then lead smaller seminar groups of around twelve to fifteen students (typically lasting for one hour). No previous university study of History is required to take Level I modules, but some knowledge of History is highly desirable for Level II. Students considering the choice of a Special Subject at Level III should possess some background in the relevant area, and should note that the two linked modules comprising a Special Subject run across both semesters in the academic year. We regard the third-year dissertation as the cornerstone of our programme for students reading dual honours or Majoring in History; this element of your studies will be both the most testing and the most rewarding of your degree, and will ensure that you progress from studying history to being a Historian.
For those who wish to explore some History via electives or as a Minor rather than as a principle subject there is scope at level I to study introductions to the major historical eras (such as medieval or modern history), as well as the chance to develop the essential skills of the historian (via our Historical Research and Writing module). Those with some experience in the subject might consider Level II electives, which range from Medieval Sainthood to Victorian English Society and modern Asia.
With lecturers and professors who research and teach in many different fields, History at Keele offers a broad and rich range of modules and welcomes all Study Abroad students to its courses.
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-10030 | Historical Research and Writing | C | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This course introduces first-year students to the study of History at university. It will provide you with the particular skills you will need to study History and which you will apply throughout your degree course. Your tutor will devise a historical topic or debate through which to identify and apply the skills needed to undertake historical research and writing. The lecture programme provides an introduction to the practises expected of and the resources available to a History student at Keele. It also introduces you to the range of historical research undertaken by History staff at Keele - the questions asked; the techniques used; the range of historical writing produced and its relevance to today. Small group seminars supported by a series of exercises will provide the means to locate the acquisition and development of skills within the study of a specific historical debate or topic. The course is assessed by a number of written exercises and an essay. Although primarily designed for History students, this course will also appeal to students of other Humanities and Social Science subjects. | ||||||
| HIS-10031 | Princes and Peoples: European History, c.1490-c.1700 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| 'Princes and Peoples' is concerned with the early modern period, a time of dramatic change for all people in Europe and a time of unremitting hardship and struggle for many. Between the late fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries, European rulers tried to strengthen their authority, often involving an increase in military power. These attempts provoked internal resistance and revolt, as well as frequent foreign wars. Expansion in trade and rising population brought rich opportunities for some social groups, as well as increased poverty for others. The fragmentation of religious unity through the challenge of the Protestant Reformation to the medieval Catholic church inaugurated a century or more of religious conflict within communities and between states. The religious map of Europe had changed fundamentally by the end of the seventeenth century, as medieval Christendom fragmented into a range of different affiliations, whether to a revitalised Catholicism or one of many Protestant churches. As well as analysing the aims and successes of the powerful, this module also examines the ways in which poorer individuals and families made a living and sought to improve their existence. These centuries are the period of the witch-craze and one lecture explores the claims of witches and the fears of their persecutors. Finally we study the 'discovery' of the New World as Europeans reached the Caribbean and the Americas, a process which had a significant impact on the imagination and social life of the people of the 'old&© world, as well as a traumatic effect on indigenous peoples of the $ùnew&© world. Five main themes are addressed: in $ùPower&© we discuss the nature of monarchical authority, developments in warfare, and resistance to government; $ùEconomy&© includes consideration of population change and the growth of towns; $ùReligion&© focuses on the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, and responses to religious division; 'Life at the margins' explores the experiences of poor and marginal groups, including a study of witchcraft; and $ùEurope and the Wider World&© looks at the encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and the Americas. This module is taught by leading scholars of early modern Europe, and is delivered via weekly lectures and weekly, small-group seminars. There are rich online resources available to support this module, including those connected to the course set-books. No previous knowledge of early modern Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10033 | Anglo-Saxon England | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The history of Britain in period from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in the early 400s AD to the mid 900s witnessed the eventual, but not inevitable, creation (from several political units) of the twin kingdoms of England and Scotland, with residual native British rule in Wales. Concentrating on the resultant Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England, the course discusses the ways in which migrant Germanic tribes gained political and cultural control of southern Britian and how their conversion from paganism to Christianity informed that process and led to the pervading influence of the new religion throughout society. The Viking attacks of the mid 800s and consequent Scandinavian settlement, together with renewed invasion in the early 1000s, for a time brought England closer to Scandinavia, but that development was halted by the Norman Conquest of 1066. Sources of information for the period are limited but cover a wide range (documentary, linguistic, archaeological, artistic), and so provide the student with challenging opportunities for analysis and interpretation. Moreover, many of the themes discussed in the lectures and seminars have a modern resonance, such as the effect of the collapse of empire, the impact of immigrants, and the role of religion. The module is taught through linked weekly lectures and seminars, and makes use of a course text book as well as online sites. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-10026 | The American Past: Explorations in U.S. History | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The American Past module is designed to equip students with a basic grounding in U.S. history from the colonial period to the present day. It stresses the multifaceted character of American development, interweaving such issues as nationalism, race, gender, and class in a broad narrative and thematic synthesis. Students will be particularly encouraged to develop specific insights into the American historical experience through investigation of documentary evidence which will provide the the basis for seminar discussion. | ||||||
| HIS-10025 | Medieval Europe | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Medieval Europe offers a wide-ranging introduction to a formative period of European history, the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. This was a time of tremendous social, political, economic and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. Having safely negotiated the year 1000, which many believed would bring the second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, Medieval Europe embarked upon a phenomenal expansion over the following centuries that would see the creation of new political entities and institutions, increasing urbanisation and expanding trade, and the extension of Christianity and European civilisation to the peripheries. The increasing development of a European identity, however, had grave implications for those living on the margins or who were deemed to be outsiders and the module will explore the increasing persecution of heretics and Jews through the development of institutions such as the Inquisition and violent encounters during the crusades. The module will address a number of key topics including: power structures and the political development of Europe; the economy, urbanisation and the expansion of trade; the significance of the Church in providing a cohesive bond for medieval society; heresy and deviance; Jews and other outsiders in Medieval Europe and the question of whether medieval Europe was a persecuting society; and finally the crusades and medieval Europe's relations with the wider world. The module is taught by leading scholars of medieval Europe through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set-books. No previous knowledge of medieval Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10025 | Medieval Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Medieval Europe offers a wide-ranging introduction to a formative period of European history, the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. This was a time of tremendous social, political, economic and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. Having safely negotiated the year 1000, which many believed would bring the second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, Medieval Europe embarked upon a phenomenal expansion over the following centuries that would see the creation of new political entities and institutions, increasing urbanisation and expanding trade, and the extension of Christianity and European civilisation to the peripheries. The increasing development of a European identity, however, had grave implications for those living on the margins or who were deemed to be outsiders and the module will explore the increasing persecution of heretics and Jews through the development of institutions such as the Inquisition and violent encounters during the crusades. The module will address a number of key topics including: power structures and the political development of Europe; the economy, urbanisation and the expansion of trade; the significance of the Church in providing a cohesive bond for medieval society; heresy and deviance; Jews and other outsiders in Medieval Europe and the question of whether medieval Europe was a persecuting society; and finally the crusades and medieval Europe's relations with the wider world. The module is taught by leading scholars of medieval Europe through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set-books. No previous knowledge of medieval Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10026 | History, Media, Memory: The Presentation of the Past in Contemporary Culture | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is for anyone who reads historical novels, watches historical films, or visits museums and stately homes. Our understanding of 'history' comes not simply from school or university study but from the versions of the past that are all around us. This module thus focuses on 'public history' rather than academic history, exploring the forms, purposes and impact of these broader, 'popular' representations of history. We will explore how visions of the past are central to individual and collective memory, and to the constructions of individual and community identities. Accounts of the past are always constructed and debated, and play a crucial role in most modern political and international conflicts. Weekly lectures will explore these general issues through analysis of the presentation of historical accounts in newspapers, film and television programmes, historical novels, and of the versions of the past displayed in museums, historic buildings and sites, in reenactments (such as the Sealed Knot), through anniversaries and memorials. One detailed case study will focus on the commemorations in 2007 that marked the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. Through a variety of written exercises and oral presentations students will make their own choice of sites, films, and written accounts for discussion and analysis in seminars. Throught this module, students will develop a critical understanding of the various media through which accounts of the past are presented, of the social, cultural and political purposes of these presentations, and of their impact on audiences and participants. They will be able to compare 'heritage' or public history with history as an academic discipline. The module is a good introduction to a second level offering on heritage management. It will be of particular interest to students taking principal English, History, Media Communication and Culture, Politics and Sociology, but also to anyone eager to understand the widespread popularity of 'history' in our culture, and how it affects the present world. Assessment is by group presentation, a short written report and a module essay. | ||||||
| HIS-10029 | Modern History | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The study of Modern History offers a wide-ranging introduction to the political debates and conflicts that frame our lives in the 21st century. In this course we unravel key tenets of the history of our recent past, looking at how societies modernised, populations grew and political ideologies developed since the eighteenth century. This is an era of empire and democracy, the growth of capitalism, huge technological advances, modern warfare, the decline and rise of religion and new political voices such as the Suffragettes and subaltern that have created new histories. Five main themes are addressed: Politics - in which we look at the rise of nationalism and the age of revolutions; the Economy - in which we look at the process of modernisation and the development of capitalism; Religion - in which we look at secularisation and political ideologies; Marginal Histories - in which we discuss gender history and crime and deviance and Europe and the Wider World which takes us to the impact of imperialism and globalisation across the world. This module is taught by leading scholars of modern history through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars, which will involve discussions across the class and in smaller groups, looking at primary sources and engaging with the secondary literature. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set books which you will use. No previous knowledge of modern history is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10029 | Modern History | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The study of Modern History offers a wide-ranging introduction to the political debates and conflicts that frame our lives in the 21st century. In this course we unravel key tenets of the history of our recent past, looking at how societies modernised, populations grew and political ideologies developed since the eighteenth century. This is an era of empire and democracy, the growth of capitalism, huge technological advances, modern warfare, the decline and rise of religion and new political voices such as the Suffragettes and subaltern that have created new histories. Five main themes are addressed: Politics - in which we look at the rise of nationalism and the age of revolutions; the Economy - in which we look at the process of modernisation and the development of capitalism; Religion - in which we look at secularisation and political ideologies; Marginal Histories - in which we discuss gender history and crime and deviance and Europe and the Wider World which takes us to the impact of imperialism and globalisation across the world. This module is taught by leading scholars of modern history through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars, which will involve discussions across the class and in smaller groups, looking at primary sources and engaging with the secondary literature. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set books which you will use. No previous knowledge of modern history is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-20063 | History of the United States in the Twentieth Century | EA | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module seeks to engage students in a critical and analytical look at the central themes of America's domestic development in the twentieth century as a backdrop for understanding society and politics in the United States today. It offers a diversity of social, economic, political and cultural perspectives and will equip students with the basic historical tools for more detailed investigation. On the one hand the module examines the general political, social, and cultural undercurrents since 1900. On the other hand it takes a closer look at some of the key events and developments during the past century that left a long-term imprint on American society. | ||||||
| AMS-20072 | Atlantic Frontier: From Empires to Independence | EA | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is suitable for students who have already taken history modules and acquired a solid grounding in the methods of historical research, analysis, and writing. This module looks in detail at the development of the Atlantic world from exploration through imperial settlement, revolutions and independence. It covers a wide range of topics; exploration and the age of enlightenment, the growth of empires and colonisation in the early modern period, migration patterns, the development of international trade networks, changing notions of race, class and gender, the age of revolutions and the struggle for independence in the Americas. Learners will gain an in-depth familiarity of a variety of case-studies related to the role and place of Europe in the wider Atlantic world between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. It will explore the impact and influence of Europe on the development and growth of the New World and, equally, the impact and influence of the New World on the political, economic, and cultural development of the Old World. Furthermore, it will look at the Atlantic as part of the new global order including Africa. It will also look at the political and intellectual links between the social orders which evolved in the New and Old Worlds, in both slave and free societies. By the application of advanced historiographical methods of research students will be able to to piece together the narrative of the Atlantic world and debate issues surrounding discovery, peopling and de-peopling of the Americas, migration and labour, the slave trade and Africa, the growth of European ports and cities, and the development of colonial rule and the Revolutionary Atlantic. Furthermore, they will gain a conceptual understanding that enables them to apply critically paradigms generated by historians and social scientists, some of which are at the forefront of debates over the development of world and comparative histories of empire. Students taking this module will obtain the ability to evaluate the differing value of conflicting approaches, a process that throws into relief the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge but also the possibility of achieving methodological objectivity. They will also learn or improve their time management skills and be able to manage their own learning by generating essay topics themselves, and make use of scholarly articles and primary sources relating to Atlantic histories in a way that goes beyond the insights available from secondary sources alone. | ||||||
| HIS-20024 | History - Study Abroad I | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20025 | History - Study Abroad II | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20064 | Whither Russia? The Historical Development of Russia in Society &Literature | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Russian history and its reflection in its culture have long fascinated Western observers and students. The last two centuries have seen Russia stumble towards modern institutions, a process that is still far from complete. Democracy is a recent and still experimental development in this traditionally authoritarian society. Russian culture, especially literature, has always been seen both in Russia and abroad as occupying a central place in these processes. Always engaged it has sought to challenge and provoke: it has a prophetic mission and has often played the role usually fulfilled by mainstream political activities in more developed countries. To read and study Russian literature, and to watch Russian cinema, is to be centrally involved in the historical processes which underlie it. | ||||||
| HIS-20064 | Whither Russia? The Historical Development of Russia in Society &Literature | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Russian history and its reflection in its culture have long fascinated Western observers and students. The last two centuries have seen Russia stumble towards modern institutions, a process that is still far from complete. Democracy is a recent and still experimental development in this traditionally authoritarian society. Russian culture, especially literature, has always been seen both in Russia and abroad as occupying a central place in these processes. Always engaged it has sought to challenge and provoke: it has a prophetic mission and has often played the role usually fulfilled by mainstream political activities in more developed countries. To read and study Russian literature, and to watch Russian cinema, is to be centrally involved in the historical processes which underlie it. | ||||||
| HIS-20066 | Imperialism and Empire | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module examines the dynamics of the `imperial age' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What were the motives for the expansion of the imperial power? What tools and methods did the imperial powers use to govern huge empires? How did imperial ideas contribute to the creation of new racial, ethnic, sexual and religious identities amongst the subject peoples of Empire? How did Empire reshape the identities of European societies? These questions are considered from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized within British and German Empires, drawing on case studies from Africa and India. Topics include: Sex and Empire; Hunting and Empire; Disease, Medicine and Empire; Colonialism and the Camera; Christianity and Empire; the German Occupation of Namibia, and Post-colonialism. | ||||||
| HIS-20066 | Imperialism and Empire | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module examines the dynamics of the `imperial age' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What were the motives for the expansion of the imperial power? What tools and methods did the imperial powers use to govern huge empires? How did imperial ideas contribute to the creation of new racial, ethnic, sexual and religious identities amongst the subject peoples of Empire? How did Empire reshape the identities of European societies? These questions are considered from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized within British and German Empires, drawing on case studies from Africa and India. Topics include: Sex and Empire; Hunting and Empire; Disease, Medicine and Empire; Colonialism and the Camera; Christianity and Empire; the German Occupation of Namibia, and Post-colonialism. | ||||||
| HIS-20069 | State and Empire in Britain c. 1530-c. 1720 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module explores British history from the Reformation, through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (or British civil wars) of the mid seventeenth century, to the Act of Union of 1707 and the beginnings of an overseas empire. Since much of what is called 'British' history is in fact the history of England, or even of London and the south-east, the module approaches 'Britain' and 'British history' as complex and contested concepts through a focus on two troubled centuries when a British state emerged through English dominance over Wales, Ireland and Scotland, Celtic nations struggled to maintain a sense of history and identity, and a $ùBritish&© empire began to develop overseas. Developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are still relevant to current political debates, especially in Ulster and the Irish republic, while devolution in Wales and Scotland has also made the meaning of 'Britain' controversial in our own times. | ||||||
| HIS-20069 | State and Empire in Britain c. 1530-c. 1720 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module explores British history from the Reformation, through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (or British civil wars) of the mid seventeenth century, to the Act of Union of 1707 and the beginnings of an overseas empire. Since much of what is called 'British' history is in fact the history of England, or even of London and the south-east, the module approaches 'Britain' and 'British history' as complex and contested concepts through a focus on two troubled centuries when a British state emerged through English dominance over Wales, Ireland and Scotland, Celtic nations struggled to maintain a sense of history and identity, and a $ùBritish&© empire began to develop overseas. Developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are still relevant to current political debates, especially in Ulster and the Irish republic, while devolution in Wales and Scotland has also made the meaning of 'Britain' controversial in our own times. | ||||||
| HIS-20071 | Saints and Society in Medieval Europe | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 2004 animal rights activists kidnapped the corpse of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond from a Staffordshire church-yard. In 2006 Argentine trades unionists fought a gun battle over the coffin of former dictator, Juan Perón, when it was reburied. And, in 2007 the home and grave of Elvis Presley attracted 600,000 visitors. An anthropologist might explain these phenomena as cultures in which the dead are seen as powerful. In this module we will look at an important group of powerful dead, saints, who are critical to the formation of European culture, embodying concepts of ritual, power and celebrity. The course will cover a wide range of issues including the development of the cult of saints in the early Church, its development and spread during the period c.900-c.1250, as well as the religious, social and political use functions of the saints in medieval culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the changing nature of who was a saint, the extent to which popular acclamation made a saint, medieval society&©s belief in the saints, the difference between local and universal saints as well as the increasing procedures demanded by the Church for canonization. With case studies on martyr and confessor saints and other models of sanctity and the use of translations of primary sources, it will also look to address the problems faced by historians of medieval saints due to the nature of the historical record. | ||||||
| HIS-20071 | Saints and Society in Medieval Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 2004 animal rights activists kidnapped the corpse of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond from a Staffordshire church-yard. In 2006 Argentine trades unionists fought a gun battle over the coffin of former dictator, Juan Perón, when it was reburied. And, in 2007 the home and grave of Elvis Presley attracted 600,000 visitors. An anthropologist might explain these phenomena as cultures in which the dead are seen as powerful. In this module we will look at an important group of powerful dead, saints, who are critical to the formation of European culture, embodying concepts of ritual, power and celebrity. The course will cover a wide range of issues including the development of the cult of saints in the early Church, its development and spread during the period c.900-c.1250, as well as the religious, social and political use functions of the saints in medieval culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the changing nature of who was a saint, the extent to which popular acclamation made a saint, medieval society&©s belief in the saints, the difference between local and universal saints as well as the increasing procedures demanded by the Church for canonization. With case studies on martyr and confessor saints and other models of sanctity and the use of translations of primary sources, it will also look to address the problems faced by historians of medieval saints due to the nature of the historical record. | ||||||
| HIS-20075 | Right-wing movements in Interwar-Europe 1918-1938 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In this module we will explore the history of Europe between the two World Wars as a period in its own right, and not just as the prehistory of World War II. We will analyse a wide range of topics: the end of World War I and its legacies in Western and Eastern Europe 1918-1921, the peace treaties 1919, the reconstruction of Europe until 1929, the hinge years 1929-1933, the variety of European reactions to the coming to power of Hitler in Germany 1933-1938. We will analyse the development of conservative and extreme right-wing movements on a Europe-wide scale, the foundation and rise of extreme right-wing movements in all European states, the different reactions of left-wing and right-wing conservative movements and parties to the $ùrevolution from the right&©. Methodologically we will evaluate approaches of transnational and comparative history and assess the interdependencies of political, social and cultural processes in the specific context of Interwar-Europe | ||||||
| HIS-20077 | Victorian Society | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Victorian period was a time of great economic, social and technological change. The way in which this impacted on individuals was affected by their class, ethnicity and gender. Whether rich or poor, male or female, Irish or a Jew, all of these varying experiences affected the ways in which Victorians worked or played, their housing or their educational opportunities, their responses to economic crises or how they viewed the family. This module explores the continuities and changes in the experiences of people across Victoria's lengthy reign and the range of questions that historians have asked about Victorian society. The first part of the module examines the social structure of Victorian Britain, focusing on gender, class and ethnicity, and the associated historiographical debates such as the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, how tolerant Victorian Britain was of immigrants and whether middle-class women's lives were more constrained than those of working-class women. The second part of the module then explores a range of themes in Victorian history that might include: urbanisation; housing and the changing shape of the city; work; leisure; education; family, marriage and parenthood; sexuality and prostitution; birth and death; childhood and youth; poverty and welfare; nation and empire. Each topic will be explored in terms of the changes and continuities in the experiences and social attitudes of Victorian people, as well as the ways in which historians have framed their debates. | ||||||
| HIS-20077 | Victorian Society | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Victorian period was a time of great economic, social and technological change. The way in which this impacted on individuals was affected by their class, ethnicity and gender. Whether rich or poor, male or female, Irish or a Jew, all of these varying experiences affected the ways in which Victorians worked or played, their housing or their educational opportunities, their responses to economic crises or how they viewed the family. This module explores the continuities and changes in the experiences of people across Victoria's lengthy reign and the range of questions that historians have asked about Victorian society. The first part of the module examines the social structure of Victorian Britain, focusing on gender, class and ethnicity, and the associated historiographical debates such as the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, how tolerant Victorian Britain was of immigrants and whether middle-class women's lives were more constrained than those of working-class women. The second part of the module then explores a range of themes in Victorian history that might include: urbanisation; housing and the changing shape of the city; work; leisure; education; family, marriage and parenthood; sexuality and prostitution; birth and death; childhood and youth; poverty and welfare; nation and empire. Each topic will be explored in terms of the changes and continuities in the experiences and social attitudes of Victorian people, as well as the ways in which historians have framed their debates. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-20062 | History of the American West | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The American West continues to fascinate Europeans and Americans alike. From the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to the official closing of the frontier in 1893, the raw power of westward expansion was the theme in American history that set the stage for the major nineteenth-century dramas, such as the warfare against the Indians, the battle over slav-ery, the rise of democratic government, the exploitation of economic resources, and the emergence of modern capitalism. At the same time the West was the culmination of both the hopes and the fears of European settlers. The myth of the yeoman paradise clashed with the reality of urban and industrial frontiers, the tales of proud pioneer deeds con-flicted with the story of the Indian genocide, the hopes for freedom crumbled under the impact of new patterns of industrial dependency, and the myth of the garden frequently ended in ecological disaster. This module examines and interprets the interaction of cultures and policies on the ever-changing border that Euro-Americans created as they moved West. It takes a closer look at both the history of the West and its legacy in modern American culture and society. Among the topics to be discussed are cultural contacts between Europeans and Natives, the varieties of frontier cultures, land policies, frontier violence, the legacy of the West in the myths and symbols of American society, and the emergence of the twentieth-century West. | ||||||
| AMS-20073 | The New World in Chains: Slavery and the Bonds of Race in America, 1619- 1877 | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is suitable for students who have already taken history modules and acquired a solid grounding in the methods of historical research, analysis, and writing. This module looks in detail at the development of Slavery in North America from settlement to emancipation. It covers a wide range of topics, notions of race and racism, slavery in Africa, the transition from white to black labour, the development of the slave trade, slave life and culture, punishment and resistance, plantation management and overseers, female slaves and plantation mistresses, the economics of slavery, slavery during the American Revolution and Civil War, the lives and position of free people of colour living in a slave society, the international abolition movement, and the effect of slavery on the social, cultural and economic development of North America. Learners will gain an in-depth familiarity of a variety of case-studies related to slavery and the slave experience in 18th and 19th century North America informed by the latest stage in the scholarly debate concerning the nature of slavery and race in American history. This module explores key moments in the history of western philosophy, disclosing the extent to which this history participates in the production of the concepts of race and racisms. By the application of advanced historiographical methods of research students will be able to to piece together the narrative of slavery and the debate surrounding how slavery and race have evolved over time. Furthermore, they will gain a conceptual understanding that enables them to apply critically paradigms generated by historians and social scientists, some of which are at the forefront of debates over slavery in North America and comparative slave studies. Students taking this module will obtain the ability to evaluate the differing value of conflicting approaches, a process that throws into relief the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge but also the possibility of achieving methodological objectivity. They will also improve their time management skills and be able to manage their own learning by generating essay topics themselves, and make use of scholarly articles and primary sources relating to slavery in a way that goes beyond the insights available from secondary sources alone. | ||||||
| HIS-20033 | History - Study Abroad III | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20034 | History - Study Abroad IV | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20063 | The Normans in Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Normans were the descendants of the Vikings who were granted lands around Rouen in 911. By a series of brilliant conquests their political power and influence spread to Britain, Southern Italy and Sicily, and even to Syria. In their own day their successes were feted in embroidery, celebrated by their own historians and bewailed by their opponents. Their most famous victory was at Hastings in 1066, but their imprint was everywhere. There is a Norman Britain, a Norman France and a Norman Sicily and Southern Italy; architecture is often said to be Norman. The survey of their conquest of England was called $ùDomesday Book,&© by analogy with the Day of Judgement at the end of the world. This course will consider the Norman expansion in Europe, often using contemporary sources in translation. | ||||||
| HIS-20067 | Sources and Debates | C | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most students who read history as undergraduates read one book of the $ùWhat is History&© is variety, usually before they have done any real history. Thereafter, their training tends to be of the $ùon the job&© variety. If they reflect on the nature, theory or ideology which underpins what they practice, they tend to focus on issues which surface in assessments, learning that writing which is $ùdescriptive&© is $ùbad&© and that which is $ùanalytical&© is $ùgood&©. Like the student of modern art, they know what kind of history they like, because on occasion they choose between medieval and modern, or between political and social history. Many presume that the nature of the historian&©s work is self-evident and would, no doubt, be encouraged to learn that many practitioners of the discipline share that view, at least implicitly. But, ask yourself some of the following questions. On what basis do historians claim to $ùknow&© about the past? Why do historians disagree? What exactly is history which is $ùout of date&©? What is historical evidence? Aside from the area of their interest, can I tell the difference between any two of the historians who have taught me? If you can&©t think how to respond to these questions, should you be able to call yourself a graduate in history? This module has been designed to help you to reflect on the nature of the subject in which you are being trained. We believe that history is a distinctive discipline and that you will acquire a deeper understanding of how it is and has been practised, partly by listening and reading, partly by practical experience. What follows is a more formal statement of what we hope that you will achieve and how we will assess your learning. | ||||||
| HIS-20074 | The Holocaust | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In this module we are going to study the history and historiography of the Holocaust on a European-wide scale. We will explore the different stages of the process of discrimination, persecution, deportation and eventually the murder of European Jewry. We will contextualize and analyse sources and interpretations. Topics of historical processes and memory will be explored and we will learn how to deal with them confidently. A special focus will be laid on researching and understanding historical processes from several perspectives: the perpetrators, the bystanders, the collaborators, and the victims. Questions of historiography, memory and methodological issues will be discussed throughout the module. | ||||||
| HIS-20076 | Issues in Women's History | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module explores how historical questions change when we foreground women's experience and gender relations in our studies of the past. We will do this by exploring a series of case-studies which will reveal the nature of women's history - its diversity; it conceptual frameworks; and its historiography. The module will focus on examples from British women's history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, rather than providing a chronology of women's history across this period, the focus will be on a series of key debates. This will provide an opportunity to work in depth on a number of case-studies arranged around the public/private dichotomy. Historians have asked how the everyday world came to be understood and experienced as gendered. In particular, they have debated the power of the ideology of separate spheres - that the public world of politics and work was essentially masculine while the private world of the family and domestic life was the domain of women. This module will explore this debate and consider how the boundary was set between the public and the private worlds at particular moments and the conditions under which women (or women's issues) were able to penetrate the public world. Equally, the extent to which the public world has sought to intervene in private matters such as women's control over their fertility will also be considered. Examples of case-studies which allow these issues to be explored are: nineteenth century romantic friendships between women: nineteenth-century feminism; social purity; women and party politics; reassessing women's suffrage; interwar feminism; reproductive rights (making the private public); and the Women's Liberation Movement (the personal is political). | ||||||
| HIS-20078 | Power in the Modern World | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What is power? How is it attained, maintained, and relinquished? Who has power, and for what reasons? Is it located in individuals, groups, classes, or nations? How does it change? This course covers models, theories, and themes that address the question of power since the French Revolution. The module seeks to examine the impact of specific historical forces, including nationalism, fascism, state building and imperialism. It also endeavours to assess different explanations for power in the past two hundred years, including gender, Marxism, and post-structuralist approaches (Foucault, Bourdieu). The course will provide students with the analytical tools to study the nature of power as it emerged in the modern period. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30084 | The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution is a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political ideas and practices originated during this period. These days the Revolution is seen primarily from the perspective of political culture and this module will explore the significant transition from subjecthood to citizenship that occurred as absolute monarchy gave way first to constitutional monarchy after 1789, and then to a republic in 1792. Contemporaries were well aware that citizens needed to be made for the new order and that cultural change was required to accompany the construction of new political arrangements, all of which will be considered along with explanations for the collapse of the old regime in the late 1780s. This module is linked to a second, The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799, which follows on. It may also be linked to the disseration in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30084 | The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution is a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political ideas and practices originated during this period. These days the Revolution is seen primarily from the perspective of political culture and this module will explore the significant transition from subjecthood to citizenship that occurred as absolute monarchy gave way first to constitutional monarchy after 1789, and then to a republic in 1792. Contemporaries were well aware that citizens needed to be made for the new order and that cultural change was required to accompany the construction of new political arrangements, all of which will be considered along with explanations for the collapse of the old regime in the late 1780s. This module is linked to a second, The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799, which follows on. It may also be linked to the disseration in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30086 | The English Civil War, c.1640-46 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil war was one of the most dramatic events in English history, retaining its hold today over both popular and scholarly imaginations. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy - find echoes today. This special subject will seek to explore the character and events of the first civil war in England from the collapse of the king&©s authority in 1640 to the end of the first civil war in 1646. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war; the development of Royalist and Parliamentarian parties; the military course of the first civil war; the impact of the war on society; the diversity of religious beliefs; and the political fragmentation of the Parliamentarian cause. This module is linked to the module, The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53, which follows this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30086 | The English Civil War, c.1640-46 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil war was one of the most dramatic events in English history, retaining its hold today over both popular and scholarly imaginations. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy - find echoes today. This special subject will seek to explore the character and events of the first civil war in England from the collapse of the king&©s authority in 1640 to the end of the first civil war in 1646. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war; the development of Royalist and Parliamentarian parties; the military course of the first civil war; the impact of the war on society; the diversity of religious beliefs; and the political fragmentation of the Parliamentarian cause. This module is linked to the module, The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53, which follows this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30094 | Religion, Rebellion and the Raj : The Partition of India I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30094 | Religion, Rebellion and the Raj : The Partition of India I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30096 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is a 'social history' of the eleventh century. This was a time of tremendous social, political and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. The course will open with a discussion of some classic and recent historiography. Primary sources revealing the exercise of power by the landed elite will then be considered in the context of radical changes in family structure such as the institution of primogeniture, a new concept of masculinity and the enforcement of incest taboos. A crucial question arising from these sources is the extent to which we can see the impact of the changes among the elite on the 'people'. Using sources describing peace of God movement, the persecution of heretics and the veneration of holy men and women, we will then look to assess the claim that 'crowd' enters European history during this period. | ||||||
| HIS-30096 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is a 'social history' of the eleventh century. This was a time of tremendous social, political and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. The course will open with a discussion of some classic and recent historiography. Primary sources revealing the exercise of power by the landed elite will then be considered in the context of radical changes in family structure such as the institution of primogeniture, a new concept of masculinity and the enforcement of incest taboos. A crucial question arising from these sources is the extent to which we can see the impact of the changes among the elite on the 'people'. Using sources describing peace of God movement, the persecution of heretics and the veneration of holy men and women, we will then look to assess the claim that 'crowd' enters European history during this period. | ||||||
| HIS-30100 | Sickness and Suffering? Health, illness and medicine 1628-1808 | O | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What was it like to be sick or injured in England prior to the use of anaesthetics and antibiotics? How many sorts of medical practitioner could people call on, and what range of treatments was on offer? Medical history has thrived recently, in terms of the resources available for research, the questions tackled and the high profile of historical practitioners like the late Roy Porter. Therefore this module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in England, by considering the changes experienced by both medical practitioners and patients from Harvey&©s publication relating to the circulation of blood in 1628 up to the 1808 County Asylums Act (the first major intervention by government in the provision of healthcare). This was a period of relatively minor scientific change, but the same decades witnessed significant shifts in the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick conceptualized both their ailments and their medical attendants. Topics may include childbirth and midwifery, the loss of the patient narrative, disease and mortality, the rise of institutional medical care, quackery and the medical market place, insanity, perceptions of medical practitioners in graphic satire, and ideas about death and burial. | ||||||
| HIS-30100 | Sickness and Suffering? Health, illness and medicine 1628-1808 | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What was it like to be sick or injured in England prior to the use of anaesthetics and antibiotics? How many sorts of medical practitioner could people call on, and what range of treatments was on offer? Medical history has thrived recently, in terms of the resources available for research, the questions tackled and the high profile of historical practitioners like the late Roy Porter. Therefore this module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in England, by considering the changes experienced by both medical practitioners and patients from Harvey&©s publication relating to the circulation of blood in 1628 up to the 1808 County Asylums Act (the first major intervention by government in the provision of healthcare). This was a period of relatively minor scientific change, but the same decades witnessed significant shifts in the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick conceptualized both their ailments and their medical attendants. Topics may include childbirth and midwifery, the loss of the patient narrative, disease and mortality, the rise of institutional medical care, quackery and the medical market place, insanity, perceptions of medical practitioners in graphic satire, and ideas about death and burial. | ||||||
| HIS-30104 | The Kingship of Edward II, I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE field trip to Lichfield Cathedral (partly built during Edward's reign) and to examine original documents at the Staffordshire Record Office. | ||||||
| HIS-30104 | The Kingship of Edward II, I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE field trip to Lichfield Cathedral (partly built during Edward's reign) and to examine original documents at the Staffordshire Record Office. | ||||||
| HIS-30106 | Suffrage Stories: lifestories | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the British campaign to give women the vote that began in the 1860s and which was finally won in 1928. Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This course looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle, the strategies and tactics of the various suffrage organisations and the competing assessments of what finally won the vote for women. Yet it is not only historians who narrate suffrage history in different ways, so did many of those who were actually involved in all sides of this fight. This module is as much concerned with the individual stories of suffragists and those who opposed them as with the accounts of historians. Indeed, during the course we will use the autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, literature, posters and banners produced by the suffrage campaign so that we can explore the relationship between individual experiences and the stories historians have told. As part of the module, every student will choose an individual woman or man involved in the Edwardian suffrage debate and research their motivations, views and activities in the campaign. At the end of the semester we will hold a hustings where we will debate the issue of women's suffrage from the point of view of these individuals. By the end of the module you will not only understand why the campaign for women&©s suffrage took so long to achieve its goal and why suffrage history continues to be hotly debated but also why so many people were so passionate about their desire for women to be able to put a cross on a ballot paper. This, therefore, is a module about the many stories told about the fight to give women the vote by those who took part, those who opposed them, those who admire them, those who think they were misguided and those who have reflected on this period in history with hindsight. | ||||||
| HIS-30106 | Suffrage Stories: lifestories | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the British campaign to give women the vote that began in the 1860s and which was finally won in 1928. Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This course looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle, the strategies and tactics of the various suffrage organisations and the competing assessments of what finally won the vote for women. Yet it is not only historians who narrate suffrage history in different ways, so did many of those who were actually involved in all sides of this fight. This module is as much concerned with the individual stories of suffragists and those who opposed them as with the accounts of historians. Indeed, during the course we will use the autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, literature, posters and banners produced by the suffrage campaign so that we can explore the relationship between individual experiences and the stories historians have told. As part of the module, every student will choose an individual woman or man involved in the Edwardian suffrage debate and research their motivations, views and activities in the campaign. At the end of the semester we will hold a hustings where we will debate the issue of women's suffrage from the point of view of these individuals. By the end of the module you will not only understand why the campaign for women&©s suffrage took so long to achieve its goal and why suffrage history continues to be hotly debated but also why so many people were so passionate about their desire for women to be able to put a cross on a ballot paper. This, therefore, is a module about the many stories told about the fight to give women the vote by those who took part, those who opposed them, those who admire them, those who think they were misguided and those who have reflected on this period in history with hindsight. | ||||||
| HIS-30110 | The Making of Contemporary Africa I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? What of other factors, such as pre-colonial African culture, Islam, or the climate? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will analyse the various images of Africa (its people, environment and history) which have developed within particular historical and regional contexts, such as slavery, the African diaspora, European colonisation, sex and religion from c.1800 through WWII. While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial systems and their legacies within Africa, especially the French empire. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences) and the $ùglobal&© (the importance of international factors, e.g. global finance, socialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa&©s history. It will also explore the ways in which Africans responded to colonisation and how local interpretations of Africa emerged. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to study the works of Leopold Senghor, Sol Plaatje, Olive Schreiner, Elseph Huxley, Henry Morton Stanley, Mary Kingsley, Frederick Lugard and Edward Blyden in addition to official colonial records, newspapers, films and other images depicting Africa. Linked Module: His-30XXX | ||||||
| HIS-30110 | The Making of Contemporary Africa I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? What of other factors, such as pre-colonial African culture, Islam, or the climate? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will analyse the various images of Africa (its people, environment and history) which have developed within particular historical and regional contexts, such as slavery, the African diaspora, European colonisation, sex and religion from c.1800 through WWII. While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial systems and their legacies within Africa, especially the French empire. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences) and the $ùglobal&© (the importance of international factors, e.g. global finance, socialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa&©s history. It will also explore the ways in which Africans responded to colonisation and how local interpretations of Africa emerged. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to study the works of Leopold Senghor, Sol Plaatje, Olive Schreiner, Elseph Huxley, Henry Morton Stanley, Mary Kingsley, Frederick Lugard and Edward Blyden in addition to official colonial records, newspapers, films and other images depicting Africa. Linked Module: His-30XXX | ||||||
| Semester 1-2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30103 | Dissertation for History - ISP | O | C | 15 | 30 | |
| A dissertation is a piece of personal research, testing students' ability to ask interesting questions, find and assess evidence in the quest to answer them, and fit questions and answers together in an extended piece of written work. The finished piece should express students' final conclusions in a convincing and coherent way. This dissertation module allows you to produce your own piece of independent historical research, guided by a supervisor who will be a world-leading expert in the field. The dissertation, of between 8,000 and 12,000 words, will normally be linked to a semester-one History programme elective but this is a matter for negotiation with your supervisor. The dissertation will allow you to engage in personalised research, into questions or source genres of interest to you. The very best dissertations are of publishable quality and are submissible to national prize competitions. Keele students have been successful in the past in the History Today competition, and the Maritime History competition. Successful completion of the dissertation will represent a substantial piece of final-year undergraduate work that will facilitate entry to a postgraduate course and/or demonstrate writing and research skills relevant to a number of different careers. It should also give you considerable satisfaction; the dissertation is often the History module that people enjoy the most during their three year degree programme. | ||||||
| HIS-30103 | Dissertation for History - ISP | EP | C | 15 | 30 | |
| A dissertation is a piece of personal research, testing students' ability to ask interesting questions, find and assess evidence in the quest to answer them, and fit questions and answers together in an extended piece of written work. The finished piece should express students' final conclusions in a convincing and coherent way. This dissertation module allows you to produce your own piece of independent historical research, guided by a supervisor who will be a world-leading expert in the field. The dissertation, of between 8,000 and 12,000 words, will normally be linked to a semester-one History programme elective but this is a matter for negotiation with your supervisor. The dissertation will allow you to engage in personalised research, into questions or source genres of interest to you. The very best dissertations are of publishable quality and are submissible to national prize competitions. Keele students have been successful in the past in the History Today competition, and the Maritime History competition. Successful completion of the dissertation will represent a substantial piece of final-year undergraduate work that will facilitate entry to a postgraduate course and/or demonstrate writing and research skills relevant to a number of different careers. It should also give you considerable satisfaction; the dissertation is often the History module that people enjoy the most during their three year degree programme. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30085 | The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution was a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political practices and preoccupations originated during this period. Especially significant is the problem of violence in the Revolution. This module will explore how the democratic republic established in 1792 developed the repressive mechanisms of the Terror in 1793-94, as well as analysing the cultural experiments which accompanied this process. The subsequent attempt to end the Revolution after 1795, on the basis of a moderate republic, proved no more successful than the creation of a constitutional monarchy after 1789. An explanation for this political failure needs to be found, for historians have spent far more time studying how revolutions begin than how they can be brought to a conclusion. The module will end with an examination of the Napoleonic dictatorship that finally restored stability to France after a decade of upheaval, albeit at the cost of the liberal ideals which the Revolution proclaimed. This module is linked to another, The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792, which precedes it. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30085 | The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution was a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political practices and preoccupations originated during this period. Especially significant is the problem of violence in the Revolution. This module will explore how the democratic republic established in 1792 developed the repressive mechanisms of the Terror in 1793-94, as well as analysing the cultural experiments which accompanied this process. The subsequent attempt to end the Revolution after 1795, on the basis of a moderate republic, proved no more successful than the creation of a constitutional monarchy after 1789. An explanation for this political failure needs to be found, for historians have spent far more time studying how revolutions begin than how they can be brought to a conclusion. The module will end with an examination of the Napoleonic dictatorship that finally restored stability to France after a decade of upheaval, albeit at the cost of the liberal ideals which the Revolution proclaimed. This module is linked to another, The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792, which precedes it. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30087 | The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil wars, the execution of King Charles I, the abolition of the monarchy and house of lords, and the establishment of the first (and currently last) republic in England constitute the most revolutionary period in English history. To contemporaries they were the world turned upside down. They retain their hold today over the popular and scholarly imaginations and can still bitterly divide amateur and professional historian. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy or house of lords - find echoes today.. This module will seek to explore and analyse the character and events of the 'English revolution' from the the end of the first civil war and the surrender of the king to the Scots, through the regicide and establishment of the first English republic, to the establishment of the Protectorate in 1653, which some saw as the destruction of the changes they had fought for in the previous decade.. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war, political crisis 1640-2, the agony of choosing sides and the outbreak of the war, the impact of the war on society, religious change and the growth of radical religious ideas. This module is linked to the module, The English Civil War, c.1640-6, which precedes this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30087 | The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil wars, the execution of King Charles I, the abolition of the monarchy and house of lords, and the establishment of the first (and currently last) republic in England constitute the most revolutionary period in English history. To contemporaries they were the world turned upside down. They retain their hold today over the popular and scholarly imaginations and can still bitterly divide amateur and professional historian. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy or house of lords - find echoes today.. This module will seek to explore and analyse the character and events of the 'English revolution' from the the end of the first civil war and the surrender of the king to the Scots, through the regicide and establishment of the first English republic, to the establishment of the Protectorate in 1653, which some saw as the destruction of the changes they had fought for in the previous decade.. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war, political crisis 1640-2, the agony of choosing sides and the outbreak of the war, the impact of the war on society, religious change and the growth of radical religious ideas. This module is linked to the module, The English Civil War, c.1640-6, which precedes this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30095 | Negotiating Nationalisms and Partitions: The Partition of India II | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition, (further partitions, communal conflict, refugee rehabilitation and a well-nigh nuclear war) for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30095 | Negotiating Nationalisms and Partitions: The Partition of India II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition, (further partitions, communal conflict, refugee rehabilitation and a well-nigh nuclear war) for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30097 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, II | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Building on Part I, this module extends the exploration of the key areas of social and religious change in eleventh-century Europe, by focusing on the nature of religious reform and the role of the reform papacy in promoting, effecting and substantiating these changes. By examining topics such as the $ùunreformed&© Church, the $ùGregorian&© reform and its rhetoric of purity and pollution, the mechanisms to deal with heresy and promote the crusade, along with issues of hierarchy and social control, the module will explore the paradox that the clergy both sanctioned and protested against the hegemony of the powerful over the poor. | ||||||
| HIS-30097 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Building on Part I, this module extends the exploration of the key areas of social and religious change in eleventh-century Europe, by focusing on the nature of religious reform and the role of the reform papacy in promoting, effecting and substantiating these changes. By examining topics such as the $ùunreformed&© Church, the $ùGregorian&© reform and its rhetoric of purity and pollution, the mechanisms to deal with heresy and promote the crusade, along with issues of hierarchy and social control, the module will explore the paradox that the clergy both sanctioned and protested against the hegemony of the powerful over the poor. | ||||||
| HIS-30101 | From Sawbones to Social Hero? Doctors and medicine 1808-1886 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 1808 the medical profession was largely unregulated and was compelled to diagnose and treat patients without anaesthetic, lacking stethoscopes, and unaware of the existence of germs. By 1886 access to the profession was closely monitored, anaesthetic was routinely administered, and Lister's work on aseptic surgery was being accepted. Therefore, this was a period of scientific change and professional consolidation with enormous significance for the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick formed expectations of their medical practitioners. This module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in nineteenth-century England by considering the development of medical relationships from the 1808 County Asylums Act up to the Medical Registration Amendment Act of 1886. Topics may include medical education and professionalisation, the evolution of institutional medical care, medical practitioners in fiction, insanity and the emergence of psychiatry, anatomy and bodysnatching, the roles for women in medicine and the drive for sanitary reform. | ||||||
| HIS-30101 | From Sawbones to Social Hero? Doctors and medicine 1808-1886 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 1808 the medical profession was largely unregulated and was compelled to diagnose and treat patients without anaesthetic, lacking stethoscopes, and unaware of the existence of germs. By 1886 access to the profession was closely monitored, anaesthetic was routinely administered, and Lister's work on aseptic surgery was being accepted. Therefore, this was a period of scientific change and professional consolidation with enormous significance for the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick formed expectations of their medical practitioners. This module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in nineteenth-century England by considering the development of medical relationships from the 1808 County Asylums Act up to the Medical Registration Amendment Act of 1886. Topics may include medical education and professionalisation, the evolution of institutional medical care, medical practitioners in fiction, insanity and the emergence of psychiatry, anatomy and bodysnatching, the roles for women in medicine and the drive for sanitary reform. | ||||||
| HIS-30102 | The Art of Dying: Death and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| 'Dying well' was a fundamental concern for all in the Medieval and Early Modern Europe, but what did that mean? This module will explore the history of death in medieval and early modern Europe from /c/. 1000 to /c/. 1750. If our society has what Geoffrey Gorer has called a 'pornography of death', whereby all practices surrounding death should be done out of public view, just like sexual pornography, it is important to understand how public death and dying were in medieval and early modern Europe. The module takes a comparative approach, comparing and contrasting ways of dying, burial, attitudes to good and bad death, especially suicide, expectations of the afterlife, and the experience of famine and plague, in medieval and early modern Europe. The ways in which a society treated death reveals a great deal about its assumptions and ideas, and so this module offers a fascinating insight into the social, religious and cultural history of a world which is very different from our own. | ||||||
| HIS-30105 | The Kingship of Edward II, II | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE residential field trip to Tewkesbury abbey (mausoleum of the Clares and the Despensers), Gloucester cathedral (tomb of Edward II) and Caerfilli castle. | ||||||
| HIS-30105 | The Kingship of Edward II, II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE residential field trip to Tewkesbury abbey (mausoleum of the Clares and the Despensers), Gloucester cathedral (tomb of Edward II) and Caerfilli castle. | ||||||
| HIS-30107 | Suffrage Stories: representations | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the ways in which the British campaign to give women the vote has been represented by historians and within popular culture Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This module looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle and the ways in which these narratives were deployed at the time as well as more recently. In order to identify the different suffrage stories that have been told and how they have been re-told in popular culture, we will not only study a range of historiographical approaches from the misogynist to the radical feminist but we will also analyse a range of cultural sources. These might include banners, posters, games, cups and saucers, adverts, fiction (novels, poetry, plays), music-hall songs as well as more recent novels (such as the Nell Bray detective stories) and films (such as Mary Poppins). What stories did suffragists choose to tell through popular culture and how was their struggle represented visually, orally and in everyday objects? How have suffrage stories been told and re-told in recent popular culture? This module will help you to answer these questions while expanding your historical skills in interpreting historiography and reading a range of cultural objects. | ||||||
| HIS-30107 | Suffrage Stories: representations | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the ways in which the British campaign to give women the vote has been represented by historians and within popular culture Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This module looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle and the ways in which these narratives were deployed at the time as well as more recently. In order to identify the different suffrage stories that have been told and how they have been re-told in popular culture, we will not only study a range of historiographical approaches from the misogynist to the radical feminist but we will also analyse a range of cultural sources. These might include banners, posters, games, cups and saucers, adverts, fiction (novels, poetry, plays), music-hall songs as well as more recent novels (such as the Nell Bray detective stories) and films (such as Mary Poppins). What stories did suffragists choose to tell through popular culture and how was their struggle represented visually, orally and in everyday objects? How have suffrage stories been told and re-told in recent popular culture? This module will help you to answer these questions while expanding your historical skills in interpreting historiography and reading a range of cultural objects. | ||||||
| HIS-30113 | The Making of Contemporary Africa II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa c.1945 to the present. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences in Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, South Africa or Nigeria) and the $ùglobal&© (e.g. decolonisation, socialism, postcolonialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa. Perhaps most controversially, the module asks: do you have to be black to be African? And is Africa, as The Economist recently wrote, a 'hopeless continent', inherently violent, poor and diseased? While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and former British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial legacies within Africa. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to read the works of: Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong&©o, Julius Nyerere, Walter Rodney, George Padmore, and recent works by people like C. N. Adichie and Thabo Mbeki. Films and other media formats will also be incorporated into the module's analysis, as will official documents. | ||||||
| HIS-30113 | The Making of Contemporary Africa II | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa c.1945 to the present. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences in Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, South Africa or Nigeria) and the $ùglobal&© (e.g. decolonisation, socialism, postcolonialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa. Perhaps most controversially, the module asks: do you have to be black to be African? And is Africa, as The Economist recently wrote, a 'hopeless continent', inherently violent, poor and diseased? While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and former British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial legacies within Africa. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to read the works of: Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong&©o, Julius Nyerere, Walter Rodney, George Padmore, and recent works by people like C. N. Adichie and Thabo Mbeki. Films and other media formats will also be incorporated into the module's analysis, as will official documents. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-10030 | Historical Research and Writing | C | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This course introduces first-year students to the study of History at university. It will provide you with the particular skills you will need to study History and which you will apply throughout your degree course. Your tutor will devise a historical topic or debate through which to identify and apply the skills needed to undertake historical research and writing. The lecture programme provides an introduction to the practises expected of and the resources available to a History student at Keele. It also introduces you to the range of historical research undertaken by History staff at Keele - the questions asked; the techniques used; the range of historical writing produced and its relevance to today. Small group seminars supported by a series of exercises will provide the means to locate the acquisition and development of skills within the study of a specific historical debate or topic. The course is assessed by a number of written exercises and an essay. Although primarily designed for History students, this course will also appeal to students of other Humanities and Social Science subjects. | ||||||
| HIS-10031 | Princes and Peoples: European History, c.1490-c.1700 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| 'Princes and Peoples' is concerned with the early modern period, a time of dramatic change for all people in Europe and a time of unremitting hardship and struggle for many. Between the late fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries, European rulers tried to strengthen their authority, often involving an increase in military power. These attempts provoked internal resistance and revolt, as well as frequent foreign wars. Expansion in trade and rising population brought rich opportunities for some social groups, as well as increased poverty for others. The fragmentation of religious unity through the challenge of the Protestant Reformation to the medieval Catholic church inaugurated a century or more of religious conflict within communities and between states. The religious map of Europe had changed fundamentally by the end of the seventeenth century, as medieval Christendom fragmented into a range of different affiliations, whether to a revitalised Catholicism or one of many Protestant churches. As well as analysing the aims and successes of the powerful, this module also examines the ways in which poorer individuals and families made a living and sought to improve their existence. These centuries are the period of the witch-craze and one lecture explores the claims of witches and the fears of their persecutors. Finally we study the 'discovery' of the New World as Europeans reached the Caribbean and the Americas, a process which had a significant impact on the imagination and social life of the people of the 'old&© world, as well as a traumatic effect on indigenous peoples of the $ùnew&© world. Five main themes are addressed: in $ùPower&© we discuss the nature of monarchical authority, developments in warfare, and resistance to government; $ùEconomy&© includes consideration of population change and the growth of towns; $ùReligion&© focuses on the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, and responses to religious division; 'Life at the margins' explores the experiences of poor and marginal groups, including a study of witchcraft; and $ùEurope and the Wider World&© looks at the encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and the Americas. This module is taught by leading scholars of early modern Europe, and is delivered via weekly lectures and weekly, small-group seminars. There are rich online resources available to support this module, including those connected to the course set-books. No previous knowledge of early modern Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10033 | Anglo-Saxon England | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The history of Britain in period from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in the early 400s AD to the mid 900s witnessed the eventual, but not inevitable, creation (from several political units) of the twin kingdoms of England and Scotland, with residual native British rule in Wales. Concentrating on the resultant Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England, the course discusses the ways in which migrant Germanic tribes gained political and cultural control of southern Britian and how their conversion from paganism to Christianity informed that process and led to the pervading influence of the new religion throughout society. The Viking attacks of the mid 800s and consequent Scandinavian settlement, together with renewed invasion in the early 1000s, for a time brought England closer to Scandinavia, but that development was halted by the Norman Conquest of 1066. Sources of information for the period are limited but cover a wide range (documentary, linguistic, archaeological, artistic), and so provide the student with challenging opportunities for analysis and interpretation. Moreover, many of the themes discussed in the lectures and seminars have a modern resonance, such as the effect of the collapse of empire, the impact of immigrants, and the role of religion. The module is taught through linked weekly lectures and seminars, and makes use of a course text book as well as online sites. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-10026 | The American Past: Explorations in U.S. History | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The American Past module is designed to equip students with a basic grounding in U.S. history from the colonial period to the present day. It stresses the multifaceted character of American development, interweaving such issues as nationalism, race, gender, and class in a broad narrative and thematic synthesis. Students will be particularly encouraged to develop specific insights into the American historical experience through investigation of documentary evidence which will provide the the basis for seminar discussion. | ||||||
| HIS-10025 | Medieval Europe | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Medieval Europe offers a wide-ranging introduction to a formative period of European history, the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. This was a time of tremendous social, political, economic and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. Having safely negotiated the year 1000, which many believed would bring the second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, Medieval Europe embarked upon a phenomenal expansion over the following centuries that would see the creation of new political entities and institutions, increasing urbanisation and expanding trade, and the extension of Christianity and European civilisation to the peripheries. The increasing development of a European identity, however, had grave implications for those living on the margins or who were deemed to be outsiders and the module will explore the increasing persecution of heretics and Jews through the development of institutions such as the Inquisition and violent encounters during the crusades. The module will address a number of key topics including: power structures and the political development of Europe; the economy, urbanisation and the expansion of trade; the significance of the Church in providing a cohesive bond for medieval society; heresy and deviance; Jews and other outsiders in Medieval Europe and the question of whether medieval Europe was a persecuting society; and finally the crusades and medieval Europe's relations with the wider world. The module is taught by leading scholars of medieval Europe through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set-books. No previous knowledge of medieval Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10025 | Medieval Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Medieval Europe offers a wide-ranging introduction to a formative period of European history, the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. This was a time of tremendous social, political, economic and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. Having safely negotiated the year 1000, which many believed would bring the second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, Medieval Europe embarked upon a phenomenal expansion over the following centuries that would see the creation of new political entities and institutions, increasing urbanisation and expanding trade, and the extension of Christianity and European civilisation to the peripheries. The increasing development of a European identity, however, had grave implications for those living on the margins or who were deemed to be outsiders and the module will explore the increasing persecution of heretics and Jews through the development of institutions such as the Inquisition and violent encounters during the crusades. The module will address a number of key topics including: power structures and the political development of Europe; the economy, urbanisation and the expansion of trade; the significance of the Church in providing a cohesive bond for medieval society; heresy and deviance; Jews and other outsiders in Medieval Europe and the question of whether medieval Europe was a persecuting society; and finally the crusades and medieval Europe's relations with the wider world. The module is taught by leading scholars of medieval Europe through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set-books. No previous knowledge of medieval Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10026 | History, Media, Memory: The Presentation of the Past in Contemporary Culture | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is for anyone who reads historical novels, watches historical films, or visits museums and stately homes. Our understanding of 'history' comes not simply from school or university study but from the versions of the past that are all around us. This module thus focuses on 'public history' rather than academic history, exploring the forms, purposes and impact of these broader, 'popular' representations of history. We will explore how visions of the past are central to individual and collective memory, and to the constructions of individual and community identities. Accounts of the past are always constructed and debated, and play a crucial role in most modern political and international conflicts. Weekly lectures will explore these general issues through analysis of the presentation of historical accounts in newspapers, film and television programmes, historical novels, and of the versions of the past displayed in museums, historic buildings and sites, in reenactments (such as the Sealed Knot), through anniversaries and memorials. One detailed case study will focus on the commemorations in 2007 that marked the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. Through a variety of written exercises and oral presentations students will make their own choice of sites, films, and written accounts for discussion and analysis in seminars. Throught this module, students will develop a critical understanding of the various media through which accounts of the past are presented, of the social, cultural and political purposes of these presentations, and of their impact on audiences and participants. They will be able to compare 'heritage' or public history with history as an academic discipline. The module is a good introduction to a second level offering on heritage management. It will be of particular interest to students taking principal English, History, Media Communication and Culture, Politics and Sociology, but also to anyone eager to understand the widespread popularity of 'history' in our culture, and how it affects the present world. Assessment is by group presentation, a short written report and a module essay. | ||||||
| HIS-10029 | Modern History | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The study of Modern History offers a wide-ranging introduction to the political debates and conflicts that frame our lives in the 21st century. In this course we unravel key tenets of the history of our recent past, looking at how societies modernised, populations grew and political ideologies developed since the eighteenth century. This is an era of empire and democracy, the growth of capitalism, huge technological advances, modern warfare, the decline and rise of religion and new political voices such as the Suffragettes and subaltern that have created new histories. Five main themes are addressed: Politics - in which we look at the rise of nationalism and the age of revolutions; the Economy - in which we look at the process of modernisation and the development of capitalism; Religion - in which we look at secularisation and political ideologies; Marginal Histories - in which we discuss gender history and crime and deviance and Europe and the Wider World which takes us to the impact of imperialism and globalisation across the world. This module is taught by leading scholars of modern history through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars, which will involve discussions across the class and in smaller groups, looking at primary sources and engaging with the secondary literature. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set books which you will use. No previous knowledge of modern history is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10029 | Modern History | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The study of Modern History offers a wide-ranging introduction to the political debates and conflicts that frame our lives in the 21st century. In this course we unravel key tenets of the history of our recent past, looking at how societies modernised, populations grew and political ideologies developed since the eighteenth century. This is an era of empire and democracy, the growth of capitalism, huge technological advances, modern warfare, the decline and rise of religion and new political voices such as the Suffragettes and subaltern that have created new histories. Five main themes are addressed: Politics - in which we look at the rise of nationalism and the age of revolutions; the Economy - in which we look at the process of modernisation and the development of capitalism; Religion - in which we look at secularisation and political ideologies; Marginal Histories - in which we discuss gender history and crime and deviance and Europe and the Wider World which takes us to the impact of imperialism and globalisation across the world. This module is taught by leading scholars of modern history through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars, which will involve discussions across the class and in smaller groups, looking at primary sources and engaging with the secondary literature. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set books which you will use. No previous knowledge of modern history is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-20063 | History of the United States in the Twentieth Century | EA | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module seeks to engage students in a critical and analytical look at the central themes of America's domestic development in the twentieth century as a backdrop for understanding society and politics in the United States today. It offers a diversity of social, economic, political and cultural perspectives and will equip students with the basic historical tools for more detailed investigation. On the one hand the module examines the general political, social, and cultural undercurrents since 1900. On the other hand it takes a closer look at some of the key events and developments during the past century that left a long-term imprint on American society. | ||||||
| AMS-20072 | Atlantic Frontier: From Empires to Independence | EA | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is suitable for students who have already taken history modules and acquired a solid grounding in the methods of historical research, analysis, and writing. This module looks in detail at the development of the Atlantic world from exploration through imperial settlement, revolutions and independence. It covers a wide range of topics; exploration and the age of enlightenment, the growth of empires and colonisation in the early modern period, migration patterns, the development of international trade networks, changing notions of race, class and gender, the age of revolutions and the struggle for independence in the Americas. Learners will gain an in-depth familiarity of a variety of case-studies related to the role and place of Europe in the wider Atlantic world between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. It will explore the impact and influence of Europe on the development and growth of the New World and, equally, the impact and influence of the New World on the political, economic, and cultural development of the Old World. Furthermore, it will look at the Atlantic as part of the new global order including Africa. It will also look at the political and intellectual links between the social orders which evolved in the New and Old Worlds, in both slave and free societies. By the application of advanced historiographical methods of research students will be able to to piece together the narrative of the Atlantic world and debate issues surrounding discovery, peopling and de-peopling of the Americas, migration and labour, the slave trade and Africa, the growth of European ports and cities, and the development of colonial rule and the Revolutionary Atlantic. Furthermore, they will gain a conceptual understanding that enables them to apply critically paradigms generated by historians and social scientists, some of which are at the forefront of debates over the development of world and comparative histories of empire. Students taking this module will obtain the ability to evaluate the differing value of conflicting approaches, a process that throws into relief the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge but also the possibility of achieving methodological objectivity. They will also learn or improve their time management skills and be able to manage their own learning by generating essay topics themselves, and make use of scholarly articles and primary sources relating to Atlantic histories in a way that goes beyond the insights available from secondary sources alone. | ||||||
| HIS-20024 | History - Study Abroad I | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20025 | History - Study Abroad II | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20064 | Whither Russia? The Historical Development of Russia in Society &Literature | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Russian history and its reflection in its culture have long fascinated Western observers and students. The last two centuries have seen Russia stumble towards modern institutions, a process that is still far from complete. Democracy is a recent and still experimental development in this traditionally authoritarian society. Russian culture, especially literature, has always been seen both in Russia and abroad as occupying a central place in these processes. Always engaged it has sought to challenge and provoke: it has a prophetic mission and has often played the role usually fulfilled by mainstream political activities in more developed countries. To read and study Russian literature, and to watch Russian cinema, is to be centrally involved in the historical processes which underlie it. | ||||||
| HIS-20064 | Whither Russia? The Historical Development of Russia in Society &Literature | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Russian history and its reflection in its culture have long fascinated Western observers and students. The last two centuries have seen Russia stumble towards modern institutions, a process that is still far from complete. Democracy is a recent and still experimental development in this traditionally authoritarian society. Russian culture, especially literature, has always been seen both in Russia and abroad as occupying a central place in these processes. Always engaged it has sought to challenge and provoke: it has a prophetic mission and has often played the role usually fulfilled by mainstream political activities in more developed countries. To read and study Russian literature, and to watch Russian cinema, is to be centrally involved in the historical processes which underlie it. | ||||||
| HIS-20066 | Imperialism and Empire | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module examines the dynamics of the `imperial age' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What were the motives for the expansion of the imperial power? What tools and methods did the imperial powers use to govern huge empires? How did imperial ideas contribute to the creation of new racial, ethnic, sexual and religious identities amongst the subject peoples of Empire? How did Empire reshape the identities of European societies? These questions are considered from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized within British and German Empires, drawing on case studies from Africa and India. Topics include: Sex and Empire; Hunting and Empire; Disease, Medicine and Empire; Colonialism and the Camera; Christianity and Empire; the German Occupation of Namibia, and Post-colonialism. | ||||||
| HIS-20066 | Imperialism and Empire | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module examines the dynamics of the `imperial age' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What were the motives for the expansion of the imperial power? What tools and methods did the imperial powers use to govern huge empires? How did imperial ideas contribute to the creation of new racial, ethnic, sexual and religious identities amongst the subject peoples of Empire? How did Empire reshape the identities of European societies? These questions are considered from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized within British and German Empires, drawing on case studies from Africa and India. Topics include: Sex and Empire; Hunting and Empire; Disease, Medicine and Empire; Colonialism and the Camera; Christianity and Empire; the German Occupation of Namibia, and Post-colonialism. | ||||||
| HIS-20069 | State and Empire in Britain c. 1530-c. 1720 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module explores British history from the Reformation, through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (or British civil wars) of the mid seventeenth century, to the Act of Union of 1707 and the beginnings of an overseas empire. Since much of what is called 'British' history is in fact the history of England, or even of London and the south-east, the module approaches 'Britain' and 'British history' as complex and contested concepts through a focus on two troubled centuries when a British state emerged through English dominance over Wales, Ireland and Scotland, Celtic nations struggled to maintain a sense of history and identity, and a $ùBritish&© empire began to develop overseas. Developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are still relevant to current political debates, especially in Ulster and the Irish republic, while devolution in Wales and Scotland has also made the meaning of 'Britain' controversial in our own times. | ||||||
| HIS-20069 | State and Empire in Britain c. 1530-c. 1720 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module explores British history from the Reformation, through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (or British civil wars) of the mid seventeenth century, to the Act of Union of 1707 and the beginnings of an overseas empire. Since much of what is called 'British' history is in fact the history of England, or even of London and the south-east, the module approaches 'Britain' and 'British history' as complex and contested concepts through a focus on two troubled centuries when a British state emerged through English dominance over Wales, Ireland and Scotland, Celtic nations struggled to maintain a sense of history and identity, and a $ùBritish&© empire began to develop overseas. Developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are still relevant to current political debates, especially in Ulster and the Irish republic, while devolution in Wales and Scotland has also made the meaning of 'Britain' controversial in our own times. | ||||||
| HIS-20071 | Saints and Society in Medieval Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 2004 animal rights activists kidnapped the corpse of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond from a Staffordshire church-yard. In 2006 Argentine trades unionists fought a gun battle over the coffin of former dictator, Juan Perón, when it was reburied. And, in 2007 the home and grave of Elvis Presley attracted 600,000 visitors. An anthropologist might explain these phenomena as cultures in which the dead are seen as powerful. In this module we will look at an important group of powerful dead, saints, who are critical to the formation of European culture, embodying concepts of ritual, power and celebrity. The course will cover a wide range of issues including the development of the cult of saints in the early Church, its development and spread during the period c.900-c.1250, as well as the religious, social and political use functions of the saints in medieval culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the changing nature of who was a saint, the extent to which popular acclamation made a saint, medieval society&©s belief in the saints, the difference between local and universal saints as well as the increasing procedures demanded by the Church for canonization. With case studies on martyr and confessor saints and other models of sanctity and the use of translations of primary sources, it will also look to address the problems faced by historians of medieval saints due to the nature of the historical record. | ||||||
| HIS-20071 | Saints and Society in Medieval Europe | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 2004 animal rights activists kidnapped the corpse of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond from a Staffordshire church-yard. In 2006 Argentine trades unionists fought a gun battle over the coffin of former dictator, Juan Perón, when it was reburied. And, in 2007 the home and grave of Elvis Presley attracted 600,000 visitors. An anthropologist might explain these phenomena as cultures in which the dead are seen as powerful. In this module we will look at an important group of powerful dead, saints, who are critical to the formation of European culture, embodying concepts of ritual, power and celebrity. The course will cover a wide range of issues including the development of the cult of saints in the early Church, its development and spread during the period c.900-c.1250, as well as the religious, social and political use functions of the saints in medieval culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the changing nature of who was a saint, the extent to which popular acclamation made a saint, medieval society&©s belief in the saints, the difference between local and universal saints as well as the increasing procedures demanded by the Church for canonization. With case studies on martyr and confessor saints and other models of sanctity and the use of translations of primary sources, it will also look to address the problems faced by historians of medieval saints due to the nature of the historical record. | ||||||
| HIS-20075 | Right-wing movements in Interwar-Europe 1918-1938 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In this module we will explore the history of Europe between the two World Wars as a period in its own right, and not just as the prehistory of World War II. We will analyse a wide range of topics: the end of World War I and its legacies in Western and Eastern Europe 1918-1921, the peace treaties 1919, the reconstruction of Europe until 1929, the hinge years 1929-1933, the variety of European reactions to the coming to power of Hitler in Germany 1933-1938. We will analyse the development of conservative and extreme right-wing movements on a Europe-wide scale, the foundation and rise of extreme right-wing movements in all European states, the different reactions of left-wing and right-wing conservative movements and parties to the $ùrevolution from the right&©. Methodologically we will evaluate approaches of transnational and comparative history and assess the interdependencies of political, social and cultural processes in the specific context of Interwar-Europe | ||||||
| HIS-20077 | Victorian Society | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Victorian period was a time of great economic, social and technological change. The way in which this impacted on individuals was affected by their class, ethnicity and gender. Whether rich or poor, male or female, Irish or a Jew, all of these varying experiences affected the ways in which Victorians worked or played, their housing or their educational opportunities, their responses to economic crises or how they viewed the family. This module explores the continuities and changes in the experiences of people across Victoria's lengthy reign and the range of questions that historians have asked about Victorian society. The first part of the module examines the social structure of Victorian Britain, focusing on gender, class and ethnicity, and the associated historiographical debates such as the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, how tolerant Victorian Britain was of immigrants and whether middle-class women's lives were more constrained than those of working-class women. The second part of the module then explores a range of themes in Victorian history that might include: urbanisation; housing and the changing shape of the city; work; leisure; education; family, marriage and parenthood; sexuality and prostitution; birth and death; childhood and youth; poverty and welfare; nation and empire. Each topic will be explored in terms of the changes and continuities in the experiences and social attitudes of Victorian people, as well as the ways in which historians have framed their debates. | ||||||
| HIS-20077 | Victorian Society | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Victorian period was a time of great economic, social and technological change. The way in which this impacted on individuals was affected by their class, ethnicity and gender. Whether rich or poor, male or female, Irish or a Jew, all of these varying experiences affected the ways in which Victorians worked or played, their housing or their educational opportunities, their responses to economic crises or how they viewed the family. This module explores the continuities and changes in the experiences of people across Victoria's lengthy reign and the range of questions that historians have asked about Victorian society. The first part of the module examines the social structure of Victorian Britain, focusing on gender, class and ethnicity, and the associated historiographical debates such as the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, how tolerant Victorian Britain was of immigrants and whether middle-class women's lives were more constrained than those of working-class women. The second part of the module then explores a range of themes in Victorian history that might include: urbanisation; housing and the changing shape of the city; work; leisure; education; family, marriage and parenthood; sexuality and prostitution; birth and death; childhood and youth; poverty and welfare; nation and empire. Each topic will be explored in terms of the changes and continuities in the experiences and social attitudes of Victorian people, as well as the ways in which historians have framed their debates. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-20062 | History of the American West | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The American West continues to fascinate Europeans and Americans alike. From the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to the official closing of the frontier in 1893, the raw power of westward expansion was the theme in American history that set the stage for the major nineteenth-century dramas, such as the warfare against the Indians, the battle over slav-ery, the rise of democratic government, the exploitation of economic resources, and the emergence of modern capitalism. At the same time the West was the culmination of both the hopes and the fears of European settlers. The myth of the yeoman paradise clashed with the reality of urban and industrial frontiers, the tales of proud pioneer deeds con-flicted with the story of the Indian genocide, the hopes for freedom crumbled under the impact of new patterns of industrial dependency, and the myth of the garden frequently ended in ecological disaster. This module examines and interprets the interaction of cultures and policies on the ever-changing border that Euro-Americans created as they moved West. It takes a closer look at both the history of the West and its legacy in modern American culture and society. Among the topics to be discussed are cultural contacts between Europeans and Natives, the varieties of frontier cultures, land policies, frontier violence, the legacy of the West in the myths and symbols of American society, and the emergence of the twentieth-century West. | ||||||
| AMS-20073 | The New World in Chains: Slavery and the Bonds of Race in America, 1619- 1877 | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is suitable for students who have already taken history modules and acquired a solid grounding in the methods of historical research, analysis, and writing. This module looks in detail at the development of Slavery in North America from settlement to emancipation. It covers a wide range of topics, notions of race and racism, slavery in Africa, the transition from white to black labour, the development of the slave trade, slave life and culture, punishment and resistance, plantation management and overseers, female slaves and plantation mistresses, the economics of slavery, slavery during the American Revolution and Civil War, the lives and position of free people of colour living in a slave society, the international abolition movement, and the effect of slavery on the social, cultural and economic development of North America. Learners will gain an in-depth familiarity of a variety of case-studies related to slavery and the slave experience in 18th and 19th century North America informed by the latest stage in the scholarly debate concerning the nature of slavery and race in American history. This module explores key moments in the history of western philosophy, disclosing the extent to which this history participates in the production of the concepts of race and racisms. By the application of advanced historiographical methods of research students will be able to to piece together the narrative of slavery and the debate surrounding how slavery and race have evolved over time. Furthermore, they will gain a conceptual understanding that enables them to apply critically paradigms generated by historians and social scientists, some of which are at the forefront of debates over slavery in North America and comparative slave studies. Students taking this module will obtain the ability to evaluate the differing value of conflicting approaches, a process that throws into relief the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge but also the possibility of achieving methodological objectivity. They will also improve their time management skills and be able to manage their own learning by generating essay topics themselves, and make use of scholarly articles and primary sources relating to slavery in a way that goes beyond the insights available from secondary sources alone. | ||||||
| HIS-20033 | History - Study Abroad III | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20034 | History - Study Abroad IV | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20063 | The Normans in Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Normans were the descendants of the Vikings who were granted lands around Rouen in 911. By a series of brilliant conquests their political power and influence spread to Britain, Southern Italy and Sicily, and even to Syria. In their own day their successes were feted in embroidery, celebrated by their own historians and bewailed by their opponents. Their most famous victory was at Hastings in 1066, but their imprint was everywhere. There is a Norman Britain, a Norman France and a Norman Sicily and Southern Italy; architecture is often said to be Norman. The survey of their conquest of England was called $ùDomesday Book,&© by analogy with the Day of Judgement at the end of the world. This course will consider the Norman expansion in Europe, often using contemporary sources in translation. | ||||||
| HIS-20067 | Sources and Debates | C | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most students who read history as undergraduates read one book of the $ùWhat is History&© is variety, usually before they have done any real history. Thereafter, their training tends to be of the $ùon the job&© variety. If they reflect on the nature, theory or ideology which underpins what they practice, they tend to focus on issues which surface in assessments, learning that writing which is $ùdescriptive&© is $ùbad&© and that which is $ùanalytical&© is $ùgood&©. Like the student of modern art, they know what kind of history they like, because on occasion they choose between medieval and modern, or between political and social history. Many presume that the nature of the historian&©s work is self-evident and would, no doubt, be encouraged to learn that many practitioners of the discipline share that view, at least implicitly. But, ask yourself some of the following questions. On what basis do historians claim to $ùknow&© about the past? Why do historians disagree? What exactly is history which is $ùout of date&©? What is historical evidence? Aside from the area of their interest, can I tell the difference between any two of the historians who have taught me? If you can&©t think how to respond to these questions, should you be able to call yourself a graduate in history? This module has been designed to help you to reflect on the nature of the subject in which you are being trained. We believe that history is a distinctive discipline and that you will acquire a deeper understanding of how it is and has been practised, partly by listening and reading, partly by practical experience. What follows is a more formal statement of what we hope that you will achieve and how we will assess your learning. | ||||||
| HIS-20074 | The Holocaust | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In this module we are going to study the history and historiography of the Holocaust on a European-wide scale. We will explore the different stages of the process of discrimination, persecution, deportation and eventually the murder of European Jewry. We will contextualize and analyse sources and interpretations. Topics of historical processes and memory will be explored and we will learn how to deal with them confidently. A special focus will be laid on researching and understanding historical processes from several perspectives: the perpetrators, the bystanders, the collaborators, and the victims. Questions of historiography, memory and methodological issues will be discussed throughout the module. | ||||||
| HIS-20076 | Issues in Women's History | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module explores how historical questions change when we foreground women's experience and gender relations in our studies of the past. We will do this by exploring a series of case-studies which will reveal the nature of women's history - its diversity; it conceptual frameworks; and its historiography. The module will focus on examples from British women's history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, rather than providing a chronology of women's history across this period, the focus will be on a series of key debates. This will provide an opportunity to work in depth on a number of case-studies arranged around the public/private dichotomy. Historians have asked how the everyday world came to be understood and experienced as gendered. In particular, they have debated the power of the ideology of separate spheres - that the public world of politics and work was essentially masculine while the private world of the family and domestic life was the domain of women. This module will explore this debate and consider how the boundary was set between the public and the private worlds at particular moments and the conditions under which women (or women's issues) were able to penetrate the public world. Equally, the extent to which the public world has sought to intervene in private matters such as women's control over their fertility will also be considered. Examples of case-studies which allow these issues to be explored are: nineteenth century romantic friendships between women: nineteenth-century feminism; social purity; women and party politics; reassessing women's suffrage; interwar feminism; reproductive rights (making the private public); and the Women's Liberation Movement (the personal is political). | ||||||
| HIS-20078 | Power in the Modern World | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What is power? How is it attained, maintained, and relinquished? Who has power, and for what reasons? Is it located in individuals, groups, classes, or nations? How does it change? This course covers models, theories, and themes that address the question of power since the French Revolution. The module seeks to examine the impact of specific historical forces, including nationalism, fascism, state building and imperialism. It also endeavours to assess different explanations for power in the past two hundred years, including gender, Marxism, and post-structuralist approaches (Foucault, Bourdieu). The course will provide students with the analytical tools to study the nature of power as it emerged in the modern period. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30084 | The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution is a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political ideas and practices originated during this period. These days the Revolution is seen primarily from the perspective of political culture and this module will explore the significant transition from subjecthood to citizenship that occurred as absolute monarchy gave way first to constitutional monarchy after 1789, and then to a republic in 1792. Contemporaries were well aware that citizens needed to be made for the new order and that cultural change was required to accompany the construction of new political arrangements, all of which will be considered along with explanations for the collapse of the old regime in the late 1780s. This module is linked to a second, The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799, which follows on. It may also be linked to the disseration in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30084 | The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution is a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political ideas and practices originated during this period. These days the Revolution is seen primarily from the perspective of political culture and this module will explore the significant transition from subjecthood to citizenship that occurred as absolute monarchy gave way first to constitutional monarchy after 1789, and then to a republic in 1792. Contemporaries were well aware that citizens needed to be made for the new order and that cultural change was required to accompany the construction of new political arrangements, all of which will be considered along with explanations for the collapse of the old regime in the late 1780s. This module is linked to a second, The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799, which follows on. It may also be linked to the disseration in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30086 | The English Civil War, c.1640-46 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil war was one of the most dramatic events in English history, retaining its hold today over both popular and scholarly imaginations. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy - find echoes today. This special subject will seek to explore the character and events of the first civil war in England from the collapse of the king&©s authority in 1640 to the end of the first civil war in 1646. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war; the development of Royalist and Parliamentarian parties; the military course of the first civil war; the impact of the war on society; the diversity of religious beliefs; and the political fragmentation of the Parliamentarian cause. This module is linked to the module, The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53, which follows this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30086 | The English Civil War, c.1640-46 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil war was one of the most dramatic events in English history, retaining its hold today over both popular and scholarly imaginations. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy - find echoes today. This special subject will seek to explore the character and events of the first civil war in England from the collapse of the king&©s authority in 1640 to the end of the first civil war in 1646. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war; the development of Royalist and Parliamentarian parties; the military course of the first civil war; the impact of the war on society; the diversity of religious beliefs; and the political fragmentation of the Parliamentarian cause. This module is linked to the module, The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53, which follows this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30094 | Religion, Rebellion and the Raj : The Partition of India I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30094 | Religion, Rebellion and the Raj : The Partition of India I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30096 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is a 'social history' of the eleventh century. This was a time of tremendous social, political and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. The course will open with a discussion of some classic and recent historiography. Primary sources revealing the exercise of power by the landed elite will then be considered in the context of radical changes in family structure such as the institution of primogeniture, a new concept of masculinity and the enforcement of incest taboos. A crucial question arising from these sources is the extent to which we can see the impact of the changes among the elite on the 'people'. Using sources describing peace of God movement, the persecution of heretics and the veneration of holy men and women, we will then look to assess the claim that 'crowd' enters European history during this period. | ||||||
| HIS-30096 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is a 'social history' of the eleventh century. This was a time of tremendous social, political and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. The course will open with a discussion of some classic and recent historiography. Primary sources revealing the exercise of power by the landed elite will then be considered in the context of radical changes in family structure such as the institution of primogeniture, a new concept of masculinity and the enforcement of incest taboos. A crucial question arising from these sources is the extent to which we can see the impact of the changes among the elite on the 'people'. Using sources describing peace of God movement, the persecution of heretics and the veneration of holy men and women, we will then look to assess the claim that 'crowd' enters European history during this period. | ||||||
| HIS-30100 | Sickness and Suffering? Health, illness and medicine 1628-1808 | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What was it like to be sick or injured in England prior to the use of anaesthetics and antibiotics? How many sorts of medical practitioner could people call on, and what range of treatments was on offer? Medical history has thrived recently, in terms of the resources available for research, the questions tackled and the high profile of historical practitioners like the late Roy Porter. Therefore this module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in England, by considering the changes experienced by both medical practitioners and patients from Harvey&©s publication relating to the circulation of blood in 1628 up to the 1808 County Asylums Act (the first major intervention by government in the provision of healthcare). This was a period of relatively minor scientific change, but the same decades witnessed significant shifts in the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick conceptualized both their ailments and their medical attendants. Topics may include childbirth and midwifery, the loss of the patient narrative, disease and mortality, the rise of institutional medical care, quackery and the medical market place, insanity, perceptions of medical practitioners in graphic satire, and ideas about death and burial. | ||||||
| HIS-30100 | Sickness and Suffering? Health, illness and medicine 1628-1808 | O | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What was it like to be sick or injured in England prior to the use of anaesthetics and antibiotics? How many sorts of medical practitioner could people call on, and what range of treatments was on offer? Medical history has thrived recently, in terms of the resources available for research, the questions tackled and the high profile of historical practitioners like the late Roy Porter. Therefore this module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in England, by considering the changes experienced by both medical practitioners and patients from Harvey&©s publication relating to the circulation of blood in 1628 up to the 1808 County Asylums Act (the first major intervention by government in the provision of healthcare). This was a period of relatively minor scientific change, but the same decades witnessed significant shifts in the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick conceptualized both their ailments and their medical attendants. Topics may include childbirth and midwifery, the loss of the patient narrative, disease and mortality, the rise of institutional medical care, quackery and the medical market place, insanity, perceptions of medical practitioners in graphic satire, and ideas about death and burial. | ||||||
| HIS-30104 | The Kingship of Edward II, I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE field trip to Lichfield Cathedral (partly built during Edward's reign) and to examine original documents at the Staffordshire Record Office. | ||||||
| HIS-30104 | The Kingship of Edward II, I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE field trip to Lichfield Cathedral (partly built during Edward's reign) and to examine original documents at the Staffordshire Record Office. | ||||||
| HIS-30106 | Suffrage Stories: lifestories | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the British campaign to give women the vote that began in the 1860s and which was finally won in 1928. Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This course looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle, the strategies and tactics of the various suffrage organisations and the competing assessments of what finally won the vote for women. Yet it is not only historians who narrate suffrage history in different ways, so did many of those who were actually involved in all sides of this fight. This module is as much concerned with the individual stories of suffragists and those who opposed them as with the accounts of historians. Indeed, during the course we will use the autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, literature, posters and banners produced by the suffrage campaign so that we can explore the relationship between individual experiences and the stories historians have told. As part of the module, every student will choose an individual woman or man involved in the Edwardian suffrage debate and research their motivations, views and activities in the campaign. At the end of the semester we will hold a hustings where we will debate the issue of women's suffrage from the point of view of these individuals. By the end of the module you will not only understand why the campaign for women&©s suffrage took so long to achieve its goal and why suffrage history continues to be hotly debated but also why so many people were so passionate about their desire for women to be able to put a cross on a ballot paper. This, therefore, is a module about the many stories told about the fight to give women the vote by those who took part, those who opposed them, those who admire them, those who think they were misguided and those who have reflected on this period in history with hindsight. | ||||||
| HIS-30106 | Suffrage Stories: lifestories | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the British campaign to give women the vote that began in the 1860s and which was finally won in 1928. Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This course looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle, the strategies and tactics of the various suffrage organisations and the competing assessments of what finally won the vote for women. Yet it is not only historians who narrate suffrage history in different ways, so did many of those who were actually involved in all sides of this fight. This module is as much concerned with the individual stories of suffragists and those who opposed them as with the accounts of historians. Indeed, during the course we will use the autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, literature, posters and banners produced by the suffrage campaign so that we can explore the relationship between individual experiences and the stories historians have told. As part of the module, every student will choose an individual woman or man involved in the Edwardian suffrage debate and research their motivations, views and activities in the campaign. At the end of the semester we will hold a hustings where we will debate the issue of women's suffrage from the point of view of these individuals. By the end of the module you will not only understand why the campaign for women&©s suffrage took so long to achieve its goal and why suffrage history continues to be hotly debated but also why so many people were so passionate about their desire for women to be able to put a cross on a ballot paper. This, therefore, is a module about the many stories told about the fight to give women the vote by those who took part, those who opposed them, those who admire them, those who think they were misguided and those who have reflected on this period in history with hindsight. | ||||||
| HIS-30110 | The Making of Contemporary Africa I | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? What of other factors, such as pre-colonial African culture, Islam, or the climate? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will analyse the various images of Africa (its people, environment and history) which have developed within particular historical and regional contexts, such as slavery, the African diaspora, European colonisation, sex and religion from c.1800 through WWII. While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial systems and their legacies within Africa, especially the French empire. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences) and the $ùglobal&© (the importance of international factors, e.g. global finance, socialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa&©s history. It will also explore the ways in which Africans responded to colonisation and how local interpretations of Africa emerged. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to study the works of Leopold Senghor, Sol Plaatje, Olive Schreiner, Elseph Huxley, Henry Morton Stanley, Mary Kingsley, Frederick Lugard and Edward Blyden in addition to official colonial records, newspapers, films and other images depicting Africa. Linked Module: His-30XXX | ||||||
| HIS-30110 | The Making of Contemporary Africa I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? What of other factors, such as pre-colonial African culture, Islam, or the climate? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will analyse the various images of Africa (its people, environment and history) which have developed within particular historical and regional contexts, such as slavery, the African diaspora, European colonisation, sex and religion from c.1800 through WWII. While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial systems and their legacies within Africa, especially the French empire. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences) and the $ùglobal&© (the importance of international factors, e.g. global finance, socialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa&©s history. It will also explore the ways in which Africans responded to colonisation and how local interpretations of Africa emerged. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to study the works of Leopold Senghor, Sol Plaatje, Olive Schreiner, Elseph Huxley, Henry Morton Stanley, Mary Kingsley, Frederick Lugard and Edward Blyden in addition to official colonial records, newspapers, films and other images depicting Africa. Linked Module: His-30XXX | ||||||
| Semester 1-2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30103 | Dissertation for History - ISP | C | C | 15 | 30 | |
| A dissertation is a piece of personal research, testing students' ability to ask interesting questions, find and assess evidence in the quest to answer them, and fit questions and answers together in an extended piece of written work. The finished piece should express students' final conclusions in a convincing and coherent way. This dissertation module allows you to produce your own piece of independent historical research, guided by a supervisor who will be a world-leading expert in the field. The dissertation, of between 8,000 and 12,000 words, will normally be linked to a semester-one History programme elective but this is a matter for negotiation with your supervisor. The dissertation will allow you to engage in personalised research, into questions or source genres of interest to you. The very best dissertations are of publishable quality and are submissible to national prize competitions. Keele students have been successful in the past in the History Today competition, and the Maritime History competition. Successful completion of the dissertation will represent a substantial piece of final-year undergraduate work that will facilitate entry to a postgraduate course and/or demonstrate writing and research skills relevant to a number of different careers. It should also give you considerable satisfaction; the dissertation is often the History module that people enjoy the most during their three year degree programme. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30085 | The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution was a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political practices and preoccupations originated during this period. Especially significant is the problem of violence in the Revolution. This module will explore how the democratic republic established in 1792 developed the repressive mechanisms of the Terror in 1793-94, as well as analysing the cultural experiments which accompanied this process. The subsequent attempt to end the Revolution after 1795, on the basis of a moderate republic, proved no more successful than the creation of a constitutional monarchy after 1789. An explanation for this political failure needs to be found, for historians have spent far more time studying how revolutions begin than how they can be brought to a conclusion. The module will end with an examination of the Napoleonic dictatorship that finally restored stability to France after a decade of upheaval, albeit at the cost of the liberal ideals which the Revolution proclaimed. This module is linked to another, The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792, which precedes it. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30085 | The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution was a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political practices and preoccupations originated during this period. Especially significant is the problem of violence in the Revolution. This module will explore how the democratic republic established in 1792 developed the repressive mechanisms of the Terror in 1793-94, as well as analysing the cultural experiments which accompanied this process. The subsequent attempt to end the Revolution after 1795, on the basis of a moderate republic, proved no more successful than the creation of a constitutional monarchy after 1789. An explanation for this political failure needs to be found, for historians have spent far more time studying how revolutions begin than how they can be brought to a conclusion. The module will end with an examination of the Napoleonic dictatorship that finally restored stability to France after a decade of upheaval, albeit at the cost of the liberal ideals which the Revolution proclaimed. This module is linked to another, The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792, which precedes it. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30087 | The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil wars, the execution of King Charles I, the abolition of the monarchy and house of lords, and the establishment of the first (and currently last) republic in England constitute the most revolutionary period in English history. To contemporaries they were the world turned upside down. They retain their hold today over the popular and scholarly imaginations and can still bitterly divide amateur and professional historian. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy or house of lords - find echoes today.. This module will seek to explore and analyse the character and events of the 'English revolution' from the the end of the first civil war and the surrender of the king to the Scots, through the regicide and establishment of the first English republic, to the establishment of the Protectorate in 1653, which some saw as the destruction of the changes they had fought for in the previous decade.. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war, political crisis 1640-2, the agony of choosing sides and the outbreak of the war, the impact of the war on society, religious change and the growth of radical religious ideas. This module is linked to the module, The English Civil War, c.1640-6, which precedes this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30087 | The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil wars, the execution of King Charles I, the abolition of the monarchy and house of lords, and the establishment of the first (and currently last) republic in England constitute the most revolutionary period in English history. To contemporaries they were the world turned upside down. They retain their hold today over the popular and scholarly imaginations and can still bitterly divide amateur and professional historian. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy or house of lords - find echoes today.. This module will seek to explore and analyse the character and events of the 'English revolution' from the the end of the first civil war and the surrender of the king to the Scots, through the regicide and establishment of the first English republic, to the establishment of the Protectorate in 1653, which some saw as the destruction of the changes they had fought for in the previous decade.. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war, political crisis 1640-2, the agony of choosing sides and the outbreak of the war, the impact of the war on society, religious change and the growth of radical religious ideas. This module is linked to the module, The English Civil War, c.1640-6, which precedes this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30095 | Negotiating Nationalisms and Partitions: The Partition of India II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition, (further partitions, communal conflict, refugee rehabilitation and a well-nigh nuclear war) for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30095 | Negotiating Nationalisms and Partitions: The Partition of India II | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition, (further partitions, communal conflict, refugee rehabilitation and a well-nigh nuclear war) for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30097 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Building on Part I, this module extends the exploration of the key areas of social and religious change in eleventh-century Europe, by focusing on the nature of religious reform and the role of the reform papacy in promoting, effecting and substantiating these changes. By examining topics such as the $ùunreformed&© Church, the $ùGregorian&© reform and its rhetoric of purity and pollution, the mechanisms to deal with heresy and promote the crusade, along with issues of hierarchy and social control, the module will explore the paradox that the clergy both sanctioned and protested against the hegemony of the powerful over the poor. | ||||||
| HIS-30101 | From Sawbones to Social Hero? Doctors and medicine 1808-1886 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 1808 the medical profession was largely unregulated and was compelled to diagnose and treat patients without anaesthetic, lacking stethoscopes, and unaware of the existence of germs. By 1886 access to the profession was closely monitored, anaesthetic was routinely administered, and Lister's work on aseptic surgery was being accepted. Therefore, this was a period of scientific change and professional consolidation with enormous significance for the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick formed expectations of their medical practitioners. This module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in nineteenth-century England by considering the development of medical relationships from the 1808 County Asylums Act up to the Medical Registration Amendment Act of 1886. Topics may include medical education and professionalisation, the evolution of institutional medical care, medical practitioners in fiction, insanity and the emergence of psychiatry, anatomy and bodysnatching, the roles for women in medicine and the drive for sanitary reform. | ||||||
| HIS-30101 | From Sawbones to Social Hero? Doctors and medicine 1808-1886 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 1808 the medical profession was largely unregulated and was compelled to diagnose and treat patients without anaesthetic, lacking stethoscopes, and unaware of the existence of germs. By 1886 access to the profession was closely monitored, anaesthetic was routinely administered, and Lister's work on aseptic surgery was being accepted. Therefore, this was a period of scientific change and professional consolidation with enormous significance for the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick formed expectations of their medical practitioners. This module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in nineteenth-century England by considering the development of medical relationships from the 1808 County Asylums Act up to the Medical Registration Amendment Act of 1886. Topics may include medical education and professionalisation, the evolution of institutional medical care, medical practitioners in fiction, insanity and the emergence of psychiatry, anatomy and bodysnatching, the roles for women in medicine and the drive for sanitary reform. | ||||||
| HIS-30102 | The Art of Dying: Death and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| 'Dying well' was a fundamental concern for all in the Medieval and Early Modern Europe, but what did that mean? This module will explore the history of death in medieval and early modern Europe from /c/. 1000 to /c/. 1750. If our society has what Geoffrey Gorer has called a 'pornography of death', whereby all practices surrounding death should be done out of public view, just like sexual pornography, it is important to understand how public death and dying were in medieval and early modern Europe. The module takes a comparative approach, comparing and contrasting ways of dying, burial, attitudes to good and bad death, especially suicide, expectations of the afterlife, and the experience of famine and plague, in medieval and early modern Europe. The ways in which a society treated death reveals a great deal about its assumptions and ideas, and so this module offers a fascinating insight into the social, religious and cultural history of a world which is very different from our own. | ||||||
| HIS-30105 | The Kingship of Edward II, II | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE residential field trip to Tewkesbury abbey (mausoleum of the Clares and the Despensers), Gloucester cathedral (tomb of Edward II) and Caerfilli castle. | ||||||
| HIS-30107 | Suffrage Stories: representations | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the ways in which the British campaign to give women the vote has been represented by historians and within popular culture Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This module looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle and the ways in which these narratives were deployed at the time as well as more recently. In order to identify the different suffrage stories that have been told and how they have been re-told in popular culture, we will not only study a range of historiographical approaches from the misogynist to the radical feminist but we will also analyse a range of cultural sources. These might include banners, posters, games, cups and saucers, adverts, fiction (novels, poetry, plays), music-hall songs as well as more recent novels (such as the Nell Bray detective stories) and films (such as Mary Poppins). What stories did suffragists choose to tell through popular culture and how was their struggle represented visually, orally and in everyday objects? How have suffrage stories been told and re-told in recent popular culture? This module will help you to answer these questions while expanding your historical skills in interpreting historiography and reading a range of cultural objects. | ||||||
| HIS-30107 | Suffrage Stories: representations | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the ways in which the British campaign to give women the vote has been represented by historians and within popular culture Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This module looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle and the ways in which these narratives were deployed at the time as well as more recently. In order to identify the different suffrage stories that have been told and how they have been re-told in popular culture, we will not only study a range of historiographical approaches from the misogynist to the radical feminist but we will also analyse a range of cultural sources. These might include banners, posters, games, cups and saucers, adverts, fiction (novels, poetry, plays), music-hall songs as well as more recent novels (such as the Nell Bray detective stories) and films (such as Mary Poppins). What stories did suffragists choose to tell through popular culture and how was their struggle represented visually, orally and in everyday objects? How have suffrage stories been told and re-told in recent popular culture? This module will help you to answer these questions while expanding your historical skills in interpreting historiography and reading a range of cultural objects. | ||||||
| HIS-30113 | The Making of Contemporary Africa II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa c.1945 to the present. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences in Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, South Africa or Nigeria) and the $ùglobal&© (e.g. decolonisation, socialism, postcolonialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa. Perhaps most controversially, the module asks: do you have to be black to be African? And is Africa, as The Economist recently wrote, a 'hopeless continent', inherently violent, poor and diseased? While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and former British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial legacies within Africa. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to read the works of: Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong&©o, Julius Nyerere, Walter Rodney, George Padmore, and recent works by people like C. N. Adichie and Thabo Mbeki. Films and other media formats will also be incorporated into the module's analysis, as will official documents. | ||||||
| HIS-30113 | The Making of Contemporary Africa II | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa c.1945 to the present. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences in Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, South Africa or Nigeria) and the $ùglobal&© (e.g. decolonisation, socialism, postcolonialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa. Perhaps most controversially, the module asks: do you have to be black to be African? And is Africa, as The Economist recently wrote, a 'hopeless continent', inherently violent, poor and diseased? While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and former British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial legacies within Africa. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to read the works of: Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong&©o, Julius Nyerere, Walter Rodney, George Padmore, and recent works by people like C. N. Adichie and Thabo Mbeki. Films and other media formats will also be incorporated into the module's analysis, as will official documents. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-10030 | Historical Research and Writing | C | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This course introduces first-year students to the study of History at university. It will provide you with the particular skills you will need to study History and which you will apply throughout your degree course. Your tutor will devise a historical topic or debate through which to identify and apply the skills needed to undertake historical research and writing. The lecture programme provides an introduction to the practises expected of and the resources available to a History student at Keele. It also introduces you to the range of historical research undertaken by History staff at Keele - the questions asked; the techniques used; the range of historical writing produced and its relevance to today. Small group seminars supported by a series of exercises will provide the means to locate the acquisition and development of skills within the study of a specific historical debate or topic. The course is assessed by a number of written exercises and an essay. Although primarily designed for History students, this course will also appeal to students of other Humanities and Social Science subjects. | ||||||
| HIS-10031 | Princes and Peoples: European History, c.1490-c.1700 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| 'Princes and Peoples' is concerned with the early modern period, a time of dramatic change for all people in Europe and a time of unremitting hardship and struggle for many. Between the late fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries, European rulers tried to strengthen their authority, often involving an increase in military power. These attempts provoked internal resistance and revolt, as well as frequent foreign wars. Expansion in trade and rising population brought rich opportunities for some social groups, as well as increased poverty for others. The fragmentation of religious unity through the challenge of the Protestant Reformation to the medieval Catholic church inaugurated a century or more of religious conflict within communities and between states. The religious map of Europe had changed fundamentally by the end of the seventeenth century, as medieval Christendom fragmented into a range of different affiliations, whether to a revitalised Catholicism or one of many Protestant churches. As well as analysing the aims and successes of the powerful, this module also examines the ways in which poorer individuals and families made a living and sought to improve their existence. These centuries are the period of the witch-craze and one lecture explores the claims of witches and the fears of their persecutors. Finally we study the 'discovery' of the New World as Europeans reached the Caribbean and the Americas, a process which had a significant impact on the imagination and social life of the people of the 'old&© world, as well as a traumatic effect on indigenous peoples of the $ùnew&© world. Five main themes are addressed: in $ùPower&© we discuss the nature of monarchical authority, developments in warfare, and resistance to government; $ùEconomy&© includes consideration of population change and the growth of towns; $ùReligion&© focuses on the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, and responses to religious division; 'Life at the margins' explores the experiences of poor and marginal groups, including a study of witchcraft; and $ùEurope and the Wider World&© looks at the encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and the Americas. This module is taught by leading scholars of early modern Europe, and is delivered via weekly lectures and weekly, small-group seminars. There are rich online resources available to support this module, including those connected to the course set-books. No previous knowledge of early modern Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10033 | Anglo-Saxon England | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The history of Britain in period from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in the early 400s AD to the mid 900s witnessed the eventual, but not inevitable, creation (from several political units) of the twin kingdoms of England and Scotland, with residual native British rule in Wales. Concentrating on the resultant Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England, the course discusses the ways in which migrant Germanic tribes gained political and cultural control of southern Britian and how their conversion from paganism to Christianity informed that process and led to the pervading influence of the new religion throughout society. The Viking attacks of the mid 800s and consequent Scandinavian settlement, together with renewed invasion in the early 1000s, for a time brought England closer to Scandinavia, but that development was halted by the Norman Conquest of 1066. Sources of information for the period are limited but cover a wide range (documentary, linguistic, archaeological, artistic), and so provide the student with challenging opportunities for analysis and interpretation. Moreover, many of the themes discussed in the lectures and seminars have a modern resonance, such as the effect of the collapse of empire, the impact of immigrants, and the role of religion. The module is taught through linked weekly lectures and seminars, and makes use of a course text book as well as online sites. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-10026 | The American Past: Explorations in U.S. History | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The American Past module is designed to equip students with a basic grounding in U.S. history from the colonial period to the present day. It stresses the multifaceted character of American development, interweaving such issues as nationalism, race, gender, and class in a broad narrative and thematic synthesis. Students will be particularly encouraged to develop specific insights into the American historical experience through investigation of documentary evidence which will provide the the basis for seminar discussion. | ||||||
| HIS-10025 | Medieval Europe | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Medieval Europe offers a wide-ranging introduction to a formative period of European history, the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. This was a time of tremendous social, political, economic and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. Having safely negotiated the year 1000, which many believed would bring the second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, Medieval Europe embarked upon a phenomenal expansion over the following centuries that would see the creation of new political entities and institutions, increasing urbanisation and expanding trade, and the extension of Christianity and European civilisation to the peripheries. The increasing development of a European identity, however, had grave implications for those living on the margins or who were deemed to be outsiders and the module will explore the increasing persecution of heretics and Jews through the development of institutions such as the Inquisition and violent encounters during the crusades. The module will address a number of key topics including: power structures and the political development of Europe; the economy, urbanisation and the expansion of trade; the significance of the Church in providing a cohesive bond for medieval society; heresy and deviance; Jews and other outsiders in Medieval Europe and the question of whether medieval Europe was a persecuting society; and finally the crusades and medieval Europe's relations with the wider world. The module is taught by leading scholars of medieval Europe through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set-books. No previous knowledge of medieval Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10025 | Medieval Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Medieval Europe offers a wide-ranging introduction to a formative period of European history, the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. This was a time of tremendous social, political, economic and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. Having safely negotiated the year 1000, which many believed would bring the second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, Medieval Europe embarked upon a phenomenal expansion over the following centuries that would see the creation of new political entities and institutions, increasing urbanisation and expanding trade, and the extension of Christianity and European civilisation to the peripheries. The increasing development of a European identity, however, had grave implications for those living on the margins or who were deemed to be outsiders and the module will explore the increasing persecution of heretics and Jews through the development of institutions such as the Inquisition and violent encounters during the crusades. The module will address a number of key topics including: power structures and the political development of Europe; the economy, urbanisation and the expansion of trade; the significance of the Church in providing a cohesive bond for medieval society; heresy and deviance; Jews and other outsiders in Medieval Europe and the question of whether medieval Europe was a persecuting society; and finally the crusades and medieval Europe's relations with the wider world. The module is taught by leading scholars of medieval Europe through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set-books. No previous knowledge of medieval Europe is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10026 | History, Media, Memory: The Presentation of the Past in Contemporary Culture | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is for anyone who reads historical novels, watches historical films, or visits museums and stately homes. Our understanding of 'history' comes not simply from school or university study but from the versions of the past that are all around us. This module thus focuses on 'public history' rather than academic history, exploring the forms, purposes and impact of these broader, 'popular' representations of history. We will explore how visions of the past are central to individual and collective memory, and to the constructions of individual and community identities. Accounts of the past are always constructed and debated, and play a crucial role in most modern political and international conflicts. Weekly lectures will explore these general issues through analysis of the presentation of historical accounts in newspapers, film and television programmes, historical novels, and of the versions of the past displayed in museums, historic buildings and sites, in reenactments (such as the Sealed Knot), through anniversaries and memorials. One detailed case study will focus on the commemorations in 2007 that marked the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. Through a variety of written exercises and oral presentations students will make their own choice of sites, films, and written accounts for discussion and analysis in seminars. Throught this module, students will develop a critical understanding of the various media through which accounts of the past are presented, of the social, cultural and political purposes of these presentations, and of their impact on audiences and participants. They will be able to compare 'heritage' or public history with history as an academic discipline. The module is a good introduction to a second level offering on heritage management. It will be of particular interest to students taking principal English, History, Media Communication and Culture, Politics and Sociology, but also to anyone eager to understand the widespread popularity of 'history' in our culture, and how it affects the present world. Assessment is by group presentation, a short written report and a module essay. | ||||||
| HIS-10029 | Modern History | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The study of Modern History offers a wide-ranging introduction to the political debates and conflicts that frame our lives in the 21st century. In this course we unravel key tenets of the history of our recent past, looking at how societies modernised, populations grew and political ideologies developed since the eighteenth century. This is an era of empire and democracy, the growth of capitalism, huge technological advances, modern warfare, the decline and rise of religion and new political voices such as the Suffragettes and subaltern that have created new histories. Five main themes are addressed: Politics - in which we look at the rise of nationalism and the age of revolutions; the Economy - in which we look at the process of modernisation and the development of capitalism; Religion - in which we look at secularisation and political ideologies; Marginal Histories - in which we discuss gender history and crime and deviance and Europe and the Wider World which takes us to the impact of imperialism and globalisation across the world. This module is taught by leading scholars of modern history through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars, which will involve discussions across the class and in smaller groups, looking at primary sources and engaging with the secondary literature. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set books which you will use. No previous knowledge of modern history is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| HIS-10029 | Modern History | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The study of Modern History offers a wide-ranging introduction to the political debates and conflicts that frame our lives in the 21st century. In this course we unravel key tenets of the history of our recent past, looking at how societies modernised, populations grew and political ideologies developed since the eighteenth century. This is an era of empire and democracy, the growth of capitalism, huge technological advances, modern warfare, the decline and rise of religion and new political voices such as the Suffragettes and subaltern that have created new histories. Five main themes are addressed: Politics - in which we look at the rise of nationalism and the age of revolutions; the Economy - in which we look at the process of modernisation and the development of capitalism; Religion - in which we look at secularisation and political ideologies; Marginal Histories - in which we discuss gender history and crime and deviance and Europe and the Wider World which takes us to the impact of imperialism and globalisation across the world. This module is taught by leading scholars of modern history through weekly lectures and weekly small group seminars, which will involve discussions across the class and in smaller groups, looking at primary sources and engaging with the secondary literature. There are rich online resources and a range of stimulating course set books which you will use. No previous knowledge of modern history is assumed and the module will appeal to all students interested in how historical developments can cast light on current problems and dilemmas, as well as being a vital module for students taking principal history. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-20072 | Atlantic Frontier: From Empires to Independence | EA | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is suitable for students who have already taken history modules and acquired a solid grounding in the methods of historical research, analysis, and writing. This module looks in detail at the development of the Atlantic world from exploration through imperial settlement, revolutions and independence. It covers a wide range of topics; exploration and the age of enlightenment, the growth of empires and colonisation in the early modern period, migration patterns, the development of international trade networks, changing notions of race, class and gender, the age of revolutions and the struggle for independence in the Americas. Learners will gain an in-depth familiarity of a variety of case-studies related to the role and place of Europe in the wider Atlantic world between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. It will explore the impact and influence of Europe on the development and growth of the New World and, equally, the impact and influence of the New World on the political, economic, and cultural development of the Old World. Furthermore, it will look at the Atlantic as part of the new global order including Africa. It will also look at the political and intellectual links between the social orders which evolved in the New and Old Worlds, in both slave and free societies. By the application of advanced historiographical methods of research students will be able to to piece together the narrative of the Atlantic world and debate issues surrounding discovery, peopling and de-peopling of the Americas, migration and labour, the slave trade and Africa, the growth of European ports and cities, and the development of colonial rule and the Revolutionary Atlantic. Furthermore, they will gain a conceptual understanding that enables them to apply critically paradigms generated by historians and social scientists, some of which are at the forefront of debates over the development of world and comparative histories of empire. Students taking this module will obtain the ability to evaluate the differing value of conflicting approaches, a process that throws into relief the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge but also the possibility of achieving methodological objectivity. They will also learn or improve their time management skills and be able to manage their own learning by generating essay topics themselves, and make use of scholarly articles and primary sources relating to Atlantic histories in a way that goes beyond the insights available from secondary sources alone. | ||||||
| HIS-20024 | History - Study Abroad I | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20025 | History - Study Abroad II | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20064 | Whither Russia? The Historical Development of Russia in Society &Literature | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Russian history and its reflection in its culture have long fascinated Western observers and students. The last two centuries have seen Russia stumble towards modern institutions, a process that is still far from complete. Democracy is a recent and still experimental development in this traditionally authoritarian society. Russian culture, especially literature, has always been seen both in Russia and abroad as occupying a central place in these processes. Always engaged it has sought to challenge and provoke: it has a prophetic mission and has often played the role usually fulfilled by mainstream political activities in more developed countries. To read and study Russian literature, and to watch Russian cinema, is to be centrally involved in the historical processes which underlie it. | ||||||
| HIS-20064 | Whither Russia? The Historical Development of Russia in Society &Literature | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Russian history and its reflection in its culture have long fascinated Western observers and students. The last two centuries have seen Russia stumble towards modern institutions, a process that is still far from complete. Democracy is a recent and still experimental development in this traditionally authoritarian society. Russian culture, especially literature, has always been seen both in Russia and abroad as occupying a central place in these processes. Always engaged it has sought to challenge and provoke: it has a prophetic mission and has often played the role usually fulfilled by mainstream political activities in more developed countries. To read and study Russian literature, and to watch Russian cinema, is to be centrally involved in the historical processes which underlie it. | ||||||
| HIS-20066 | Imperialism and Empire | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module examines the dynamics of the `imperial age' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What were the motives for the expansion of the imperial power? What tools and methods did the imperial powers use to govern huge empires? How did imperial ideas contribute to the creation of new racial, ethnic, sexual and religious identities amongst the subject peoples of Empire? How did Empire reshape the identities of European societies? These questions are considered from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized within British and German Empires, drawing on case studies from Africa and India. Topics include: Sex and Empire; Hunting and Empire; Disease, Medicine and Empire; Colonialism and the Camera; Christianity and Empire; the German Occupation of Namibia, and Post-colonialism. | ||||||
| HIS-20066 | Imperialism and Empire | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module examines the dynamics of the `imperial age' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What were the motives for the expansion of the imperial power? What tools and methods did the imperial powers use to govern huge empires? How did imperial ideas contribute to the creation of new racial, ethnic, sexual and religious identities amongst the subject peoples of Empire? How did Empire reshape the identities of European societies? These questions are considered from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized within British and German Empires, drawing on case studies from Africa and India. Topics include: Sex and Empire; Hunting and Empire; Disease, Medicine and Empire; Colonialism and the Camera; Christianity and Empire; the German Occupation of Namibia, and Post-colonialism. | ||||||
| HIS-20069 | State and Empire in Britain c. 1530-c. 1720 | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module explores British history from the Reformation, through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (or British civil wars) of the mid seventeenth century, to the Act of Union of 1707 and the beginnings of an overseas empire. Since much of what is called 'British' history is in fact the history of England, or even of London and the south-east, the module approaches 'Britain' and 'British history' as complex and contested concepts through a focus on two troubled centuries when a British state emerged through English dominance over Wales, Ireland and Scotland, Celtic nations struggled to maintain a sense of history and identity, and a $ùBritish&© empire began to develop overseas. Developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are still relevant to current political debates, especially in Ulster and the Irish republic, while devolution in Wales and Scotland has also made the meaning of 'Britain' controversial in our own times. | ||||||
| HIS-20069 | State and Empire in Britain c. 1530-c. 1720 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The module explores British history from the Reformation, through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (or British civil wars) of the mid seventeenth century, to the Act of Union of 1707 and the beginnings of an overseas empire. Since much of what is called 'British' history is in fact the history of England, or even of London and the south-east, the module approaches 'Britain' and 'British history' as complex and contested concepts through a focus on two troubled centuries when a British state emerged through English dominance over Wales, Ireland and Scotland, Celtic nations struggled to maintain a sense of history and identity, and a $ùBritish&© empire began to develop overseas. Developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are still relevant to current political debates, especially in Ulster and the Irish republic, while devolution in Wales and Scotland has also made the meaning of 'Britain' controversial in our own times. | ||||||
| HIS-20071 | Saints and Society in Medieval Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 2004 animal rights activists kidnapped the corpse of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond from a Staffordshire church-yard. In 2006 Argentine trades unionists fought a gun battle over the coffin of former dictator, Juan Perón, when it was reburied. And, in 2007 the home and grave of Elvis Presley attracted 600,000 visitors. An anthropologist might explain these phenomena as cultures in which the dead are seen as powerful. In this module we will look at an important group of powerful dead, saints, who are critical to the formation of European culture, embodying concepts of ritual, power and celebrity. The course will cover a wide range of issues including the development of the cult of saints in the early Church, its development and spread during the period c.900-c.1250, as well as the religious, social and political use functions of the saints in medieval culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the changing nature of who was a saint, the extent to which popular acclamation made a saint, medieval society&©s belief in the saints, the difference between local and universal saints as well as the increasing procedures demanded by the Church for canonization. With case studies on martyr and confessor saints and other models of sanctity and the use of translations of primary sources, it will also look to address the problems faced by historians of medieval saints due to the nature of the historical record. | ||||||
| HIS-20071 | Saints and Society in Medieval Europe | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 2004 animal rights activists kidnapped the corpse of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond from a Staffordshire church-yard. In 2006 Argentine trades unionists fought a gun battle over the coffin of former dictator, Juan Perón, when it was reburied. And, in 2007 the home and grave of Elvis Presley attracted 600,000 visitors. An anthropologist might explain these phenomena as cultures in which the dead are seen as powerful. In this module we will look at an important group of powerful dead, saints, who are critical to the formation of European culture, embodying concepts of ritual, power and celebrity. The course will cover a wide range of issues including the development of the cult of saints in the early Church, its development and spread during the period c.900-c.1250, as well as the religious, social and political use functions of the saints in medieval culture. Particular attention will be devoted to the changing nature of who was a saint, the extent to which popular acclamation made a saint, medieval society&©s belief in the saints, the difference between local and universal saints as well as the increasing procedures demanded by the Church for canonization. With case studies on martyr and confessor saints and other models of sanctity and the use of translations of primary sources, it will also look to address the problems faced by historians of medieval saints due to the nature of the historical record. | ||||||
| HIS-20075 | Right-wing movements in Interwar-Europe 1918-1938 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In this module we will explore the history of Europe between the two World Wars as a period in its own right, and not just as the prehistory of World War II. We will analyse a wide range of topics: the end of World War I and its legacies in Western and Eastern Europe 1918-1921, the peace treaties 1919, the reconstruction of Europe until 1929, the hinge years 1929-1933, the variety of European reactions to the coming to power of Hitler in Germany 1933-1938. We will analyse the development of conservative and extreme right-wing movements on a Europe-wide scale, the foundation and rise of extreme right-wing movements in all European states, the different reactions of left-wing and right-wing conservative movements and parties to the $ùrevolution from the right&©. Methodologically we will evaluate approaches of transnational and comparative history and assess the interdependencies of political, social and cultural processes in the specific context of Interwar-Europe | ||||||
| HIS-20077 | Victorian Society | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Victorian period was a time of great economic, social and technological change. The way in which this impacted on individuals was affected by their class, ethnicity and gender. Whether rich or poor, male or female, Irish or a Jew, all of these varying experiences affected the ways in which Victorians worked or played, their housing or their educational opportunities, their responses to economic crises or how they viewed the family. This module explores the continuities and changes in the experiences of people across Victoria's lengthy reign and the range of questions that historians have asked about Victorian society. The first part of the module examines the social structure of Victorian Britain, focusing on gender, class and ethnicity, and the associated historiographical debates such as the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, how tolerant Victorian Britain was of immigrants and whether middle-class women's lives were more constrained than those of working-class women. The second part of the module then explores a range of themes in Victorian history that might include: urbanisation; housing and the changing shape of the city; work; leisure; education; family, marriage and parenthood; sexuality and prostitution; birth and death; childhood and youth; poverty and welfare; nation and empire. Each topic will be explored in terms of the changes and continuities in the experiences and social attitudes of Victorian people, as well as the ways in which historians have framed their debates. | ||||||
| HIS-20077 | Victorian Society | O | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Victorian period was a time of great economic, social and technological change. The way in which this impacted on individuals was affected by their class, ethnicity and gender. Whether rich or poor, male or female, Irish or a Jew, all of these varying experiences affected the ways in which Victorians worked or played, their housing or their educational opportunities, their responses to economic crises or how they viewed the family. This module explores the continuities and changes in the experiences of people across Victoria's lengthy reign and the range of questions that historians have asked about Victorian society. The first part of the module examines the social structure of Victorian Britain, focusing on gender, class and ethnicity, and the associated historiographical debates such as the extent of social mobility in Victorian Britain, how tolerant Victorian Britain was of immigrants and whether middle-class women's lives were more constrained than those of working-class women. The second part of the module then explores a range of themes in Victorian history that might include: urbanisation; housing and the changing shape of the city; work; leisure; education; family, marriage and parenthood; sexuality and prostitution; birth and death; childhood and youth; poverty and welfare; nation and empire. Each topic will be explored in terms of the changes and continuities in the experiences and social attitudes of Victorian people, as well as the ways in which historians have framed their debates. | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| AMS-20062 | History of the American West | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The American West continues to fascinate Europeans and Americans alike. From the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to the official closing of the frontier in 1893, the raw power of westward expansion was the theme in American history that set the stage for the major nineteenth-century dramas, such as the warfare against the Indians, the battle over slav-ery, the rise of democratic government, the exploitation of economic resources, and the emergence of modern capitalism. At the same time the West was the culmination of both the hopes and the fears of European settlers. The myth of the yeoman paradise clashed with the reality of urban and industrial frontiers, the tales of proud pioneer deeds con-flicted with the story of the Indian genocide, the hopes for freedom crumbled under the impact of new patterns of industrial dependency, and the myth of the garden frequently ended in ecological disaster. This module examines and interprets the interaction of cultures and policies on the ever-changing border that Euro-Americans created as they moved West. It takes a closer look at both the history of the West and its legacy in modern American culture and society. Among the topics to be discussed are cultural contacts between Europeans and Natives, the varieties of frontier cultures, land policies, frontier violence, the legacy of the West in the myths and symbols of American society, and the emergence of the twentieth-century West. | ||||||
| AMS-20073 | The New World in Chains: Slavery and the Bonds of Race in America, 1619- 1877 | EA | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is suitable for students who have already taken history modules and acquired a solid grounding in the methods of historical research, analysis, and writing. This module looks in detail at the development of Slavery in North America from settlement to emancipation. It covers a wide range of topics, notions of race and racism, slavery in Africa, the transition from white to black labour, the development of the slave trade, slave life and culture, punishment and resistance, plantation management and overseers, female slaves and plantation mistresses, the economics of slavery, slavery during the American Revolution and Civil War, the lives and position of free people of colour living in a slave society, the international abolition movement, and the effect of slavery on the social, cultural and economic development of North America. Learners will gain an in-depth familiarity of a variety of case-studies related to slavery and the slave experience in 18th and 19th century North America informed by the latest stage in the scholarly debate concerning the nature of slavery and race in American history. This module explores key moments in the history of western philosophy, disclosing the extent to which this history participates in the production of the concepts of race and racisms. By the application of advanced historiographical methods of research students will be able to to piece together the narrative of slavery and the debate surrounding how slavery and race have evolved over time. Furthermore, they will gain a conceptual understanding that enables them to apply critically paradigms generated by historians and social scientists, some of which are at the forefront of debates over slavery in North America and comparative slave studies. Students taking this module will obtain the ability to evaluate the differing value of conflicting approaches, a process that throws into relief the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge but also the possibility of achieving methodological objectivity. They will also improve their time management skills and be able to manage their own learning by generating essay topics themselves, and make use of scholarly articles and primary sources relating to slavery in a way that goes beyond the insights available from secondary sources alone. | ||||||
| HIS-20033 | History - Study Abroad III | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20034 | History - Study Abroad IV | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This is a module that is automatically allocated to the records our Keele level II students who are going to Study Abroad at a partner University for a semester of their second year and cannot be selected by any other level II students. | ||||||
| HIS-20063 | The Normans in Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The Normans were the descendants of the Vikings who were granted lands around Rouen in 911. By a series of brilliant conquests their political power and influence spread to Britain, Southern Italy and Sicily, and even to Syria. In their own day their successes were feted in embroidery, celebrated by their own historians and bewailed by their opponents. Their most famous victory was at Hastings in 1066, but their imprint was everywhere. There is a Norman Britain, a Norman France and a Norman Sicily and Southern Italy; architecture is often said to be Norman. The survey of their conquest of England was called $ùDomesday Book,&© by analogy with the Day of Judgement at the end of the world. This course will consider the Norman expansion in Europe, often using contemporary sources in translation. | ||||||
| HIS-20067 | Sources and Debates | C | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most students who read history as undergraduates read one book of the $ùWhat is History&© is variety, usually before they have done any real history. Thereafter, their training tends to be of the $ùon the job&© variety. If they reflect on the nature, theory or ideology which underpins what they practice, they tend to focus on issues which surface in assessments, learning that writing which is $ùdescriptive&© is $ùbad&© and that which is $ùanalytical&© is $ùgood&©. Like the student of modern art, they know what kind of history they like, because on occasion they choose between medieval and modern, or between political and social history. Many presume that the nature of the historian&©s work is self-evident and would, no doubt, be encouraged to learn that many practitioners of the discipline share that view, at least implicitly. But, ask yourself some of the following questions. On what basis do historians claim to $ùknow&© about the past? Why do historians disagree? What exactly is history which is $ùout of date&©? What is historical evidence? Aside from the area of their interest, can I tell the difference between any two of the historians who have taught me? If you can&©t think how to respond to these questions, should you be able to call yourself a graduate in history? This module has been designed to help you to reflect on the nature of the subject in which you are being trained. We believe that history is a distinctive discipline and that you will acquire a deeper understanding of how it is and has been practised, partly by listening and reading, partly by practical experience. What follows is a more formal statement of what we hope that you will achieve and how we will assess your learning. | ||||||
| HIS-20074 | The Holocaust | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In this module we are going to study the history and historiography of the Holocaust on a European-wide scale. We will explore the different stages of the process of discrimination, persecution, deportation and eventually the murder of European Jewry. We will contextualize and analyse sources and interpretations. Topics of historical processes and memory will be explored and we will learn how to deal with them confidently. A special focus will be laid on researching and understanding historical processes from several perspectives: the perpetrators, the bystanders, the collaborators, and the victims. Questions of historiography, memory and methodological issues will be discussed throughout the module. | ||||||
| HIS-20076 | Issues in Women's History | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module explores how historical questions change when we foreground women's experience and gender relations in our studies of the past. We will do this by exploring a series of case-studies which will reveal the nature of women's history - its diversity; it conceptual frameworks; and its historiography. The module will focus on examples from British women's history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, rather than providing a chronology of women's history across this period, the focus will be on a series of key debates. This will provide an opportunity to work in depth on a number of case-studies arranged around the public/private dichotomy. Historians have asked how the everyday world came to be understood and experienced as gendered. In particular, they have debated the power of the ideology of separate spheres - that the public world of politics and work was essentially masculine while the private world of the family and domestic life was the domain of women. This module will explore this debate and consider how the boundary was set between the public and the private worlds at particular moments and the conditions under which women (or women's issues) were able to penetrate the public world. Equally, the extent to which the public world has sought to intervene in private matters such as women's control over their fertility will also be considered. Examples of case-studies which allow these issues to be explored are: nineteenth century romantic friendships between women: nineteenth-century feminism; social purity; women and party politics; reassessing women's suffrage; interwar feminism; reproductive rights (making the private public); and the Women's Liberation Movement (the personal is political). | ||||||
| HIS-20078 | Power in the Modern World | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What is power? How is it attained, maintained, and relinquished? Who has power, and for what reasons? Is it located in individuals, groups, classes, or nations? How does it change? This course covers models, theories, and themes that address the question of power since the French Revolution. The module seeks to examine the impact of specific historical forces, including nationalism, fascism, state building and imperialism. It also endeavours to assess different explanations for power in the past two hundred years, including gender, Marxism, and post-structuralist approaches (Foucault, Bourdieu). The course will provide students with the analytical tools to study the nature of power as it emerged in the modern period. | ||||||
| Semester 1 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30084 | The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution is a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political ideas and practices originated during this period. These days the Revolution is seen primarily from the perspective of political culture and this module will explore the significant transition from subjecthood to citizenship that occurred as absolute monarchy gave way first to constitutional monarchy after 1789, and then to a republic in 1792. Contemporaries were well aware that citizens needed to be made for the new order and that cultural change was required to accompany the construction of new political arrangements, all of which will be considered along with explanations for the collapse of the old regime in the late 1780s. This module is linked to a second, The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799, which follows on. It may also be linked to the disseration in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30086 | The English Civil War, c.1640-46 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil war was one of the most dramatic events in English history, retaining its hold today over both popular and scholarly imaginations. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy - find echoes today. This special subject will seek to explore the character and events of the first civil war in England from the collapse of the king&©s authority in 1640 to the end of the first civil war in 1646. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war; the development of Royalist and Parliamentarian parties; the military course of the first civil war; the impact of the war on society; the diversity of religious beliefs; and the political fragmentation of the Parliamentarian cause. This module is linked to the module, The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53, which follows this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30094 | Religion, Rebellion and the Raj : The Partition of India I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30096 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module is a 'social history' of the eleventh century. This was a time of tremendous social, political and intellectual transformation, indeed a time, according to many historians, when European civilisation as we know it was created. The course will open with a discussion of some classic and recent historiography. Primary sources revealing the exercise of power by the landed elite will then be considered in the context of radical changes in family structure such as the institution of primogeniture, a new concept of masculinity and the enforcement of incest taboos. A crucial question arising from these sources is the extent to which we can see the impact of the changes among the elite on the 'people'. Using sources describing peace of God movement, the persecution of heretics and the veneration of holy men and women, we will then look to assess the claim that 'crowd' enters European history during this period. | ||||||
| HIS-30100 | Sickness and Suffering? Health, illness and medicine 1628-1808 | EP | C | 7.5 | 15 | |
| What was it like to be sick or injured in England prior to the use of anaesthetics and antibiotics? How many sorts of medical practitioner could people call on, and what range of treatments was on offer? Medical history has thrived recently, in terms of the resources available for research, the questions tackled and the high profile of historical practitioners like the late Roy Porter. Therefore this module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in England, by considering the changes experienced by both medical practitioners and patients from Harvey&©s publication relating to the circulation of blood in 1628 up to the 1808 County Asylums Act (the first major intervention by government in the provision of healthcare). This was a period of relatively minor scientific change, but the same decades witnessed significant shifts in the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick conceptualized both their ailments and their medical attendants. Topics may include childbirth and midwifery, the loss of the patient narrative, disease and mortality, the rise of institutional medical care, quackery and the medical market place, insanity, perceptions of medical practitioners in graphic satire, and ideas about death and burial. | ||||||
| HIS-30104 | The Kingship of Edward II, I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE field trip to Lichfield Cathedral (partly built during Edward's reign) and to examine original documents at the Staffordshire Record Office. | ||||||
| HIS-30106 | Suffrage Stories: lifestories | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the British campaign to give women the vote that began in the 1860s and which was finally won in 1928. Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This course looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle, the strategies and tactics of the various suffrage organisations and the competing assessments of what finally won the vote for women. Yet it is not only historians who narrate suffrage history in different ways, so did many of those who were actually involved in all sides of this fight. This module is as much concerned with the individual stories of suffragists and those who opposed them as with the accounts of historians. Indeed, during the course we will use the autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, literature, posters and banners produced by the suffrage campaign so that we can explore the relationship between individual experiences and the stories historians have told. As part of the module, every student will choose an individual woman or man involved in the Edwardian suffrage debate and research their motivations, views and activities in the campaign. At the end of the semester we will hold a hustings where we will debate the issue of women's suffrage from the point of view of these individuals. By the end of the module you will not only understand why the campaign for women&©s suffrage took so long to achieve its goal and why suffrage history continues to be hotly debated but also why so many people were so passionate about their desire for women to be able to put a cross on a ballot paper. This, therefore, is a module about the many stories told about the fight to give women the vote by those who took part, those who opposed them, those who admire them, those who think they were misguided and those who have reflected on this period in history with hindsight. | ||||||
| HIS-30110 | The Making of Contemporary Africa I | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? What of other factors, such as pre-colonial African culture, Islam, or the climate? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will analyse the various images of Africa (its people, environment and history) which have developed within particular historical and regional contexts, such as slavery, the African diaspora, European colonisation, sex and religion from c.1800 through WWII. While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial systems and their legacies within Africa, especially the French empire. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences) and the $ùglobal&© (the importance of international factors, e.g. global finance, socialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa&©s history. It will also explore the ways in which Africans responded to colonisation and how local interpretations of Africa emerged. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to study the works of Leopold Senghor, Sol Plaatje, Olive Schreiner, Elseph Huxley, Henry Morton Stanley, Mary Kingsley, Frederick Lugard and Edward Blyden in addition to official colonial records, newspapers, films and other images depicting Africa. Linked Module: His-30XXX | ||||||
| Semester 2 | C/O | TYP | ECTS | CATS | ||
| HIS-30085 | The French Revolution: Terror and Dictatorship, 1793-1799 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The French Revolution was a world-historical event and its outbreak in 1789 is widely regarded as marking the beginning of modern history. It is a topic that continues to attract attention from scholars across the globe and its interpretation remains deeply controversial, not least because so many of our current political practices and preoccupations originated during this period. Especially significant is the problem of violence in the Revolution. This module will explore how the democratic republic established in 1792 developed the repressive mechanisms of the Terror in 1793-94, as well as analysing the cultural experiments which accompanied this process. The subsequent attempt to end the Revolution after 1795, on the basis of a moderate republic, proved no more successful than the creation of a constitutional monarchy after 1789. An explanation for this political failure needs to be found, for historians have spent far more time studying how revolutions begin than how they can be brought to a conclusion. The module will end with an examination of the Napoleonic dictatorship that finally restored stability to France after a decade of upheaval, albeit at the cost of the liberal ideals which the Revolution proclaimed. This module is linked to another, The French Revolution: Monarchy to Republic, 1789-1792, which precedes it. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History for which, as for these free-standing modules, there is a wealth of relevant material available in English, both at Keele and online. | ||||||
| HIS-30087 | The World Turned Upside Down: the English Revolution, c.1646-53 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| The English civil wars, the execution of King Charles I, the abolition of the monarchy and house of lords, and the establishment of the first (and currently last) republic in England constitute the most revolutionary period in English history. To contemporaries they were the world turned upside down. They retain their hold today over the popular and scholarly imaginations and can still bitterly divide amateur and professional historian. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy or house of lords - find echoes today.. This module will seek to explore and analyse the character and events of the 'English revolution' from the the end of the first civil war and the surrender of the king to the Scots, through the regicide and establishment of the first English republic, to the establishment of the Protectorate in 1653, which some saw as the destruction of the changes they had fought for in the previous decade.. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war, political crisis 1640-2, the agony of choosing sides and the outbreak of the war, the impact of the war on society, religious change and the growth of radical religious ideas. This module is linked to the module, The English Civil War, c.1640-6, which precedes this. It may also be linked to the dissertation in History: there is a wealth of source material for a dissertation on the political, social, cultural, military or local history of mid seventeenth-century England available at Keele, including access to every book published in Britain in the period through Early English Books Online. | ||||||
| HIS-30095 | Negotiating Nationalisms and Partitions: The Partition of India II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In August 1947 British India was partitioned to create two independent countries, India and Pakistan. This partition resulted in an estimated one million deaths and the largest migration of people in modern history. What were the forces which led to the Partition of India in 1947: British policy; Muslim separatism or the unitary impulses of Indian nationalism? Based upon specific sources and documents, this course will explore why the end of British rule in India was accompanied by Partition and the creation of Pakistan and assess some of the consequences of Partition, (further partitions, communal conflict, refugee rehabilitation and a well-nigh nuclear war) for the subcontinent after independence. | ||||||
| HIS-30097 | Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century, II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Building on Part I, this module extends the exploration of the key areas of social and religious change in eleventh-century Europe, by focusing on the nature of religious reform and the role of the reform papacy in promoting, effecting and substantiating these changes. By examining topics such as the $ùunreformed&© Church, the $ùGregorian&© reform and its rhetoric of purity and pollution, the mechanisms to deal with heresy and promote the crusade, along with issues of hierarchy and social control, the module will explore the paradox that the clergy both sanctioned and protested against the hegemony of the powerful over the poor. | ||||||
| HIS-30101 | From Sawbones to Social Hero? Doctors and medicine 1808-1886 | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| In 1808 the medical profession was largely unregulated and was compelled to diagnose and treat patients without anaesthetic, lacking stethoscopes, and unaware of the existence of germs. By 1886 access to the profession was closely monitored, anaesthetic was routinely administered, and Lister's work on aseptic surgery was being accepted. Therefore, this was a period of scientific change and professional consolidation with enormous significance for the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick formed expectations of their medical practitioners. This module treats aspects of the social history of medicine in nineteenth-century England by considering the development of medical relationships from the 1808 County Asylums Act up to the Medical Registration Amendment Act of 1886. Topics may include medical education and professionalisation, the evolution of institutional medical care, medical practitioners in fiction, insanity and the emergence of psychiatry, anatomy and bodysnatching, the roles for women in medicine and the drive for sanitary reform. | ||||||
| HIS-30102 | The Art of Dying: Death and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| 'Dying well' was a fundamental concern for all in the Medieval and Early Modern Europe, but what did that mean? This module will explore the history of death in medieval and early modern Europe from /c/. 1000 to /c/. 1750. If our society has what Geoffrey Gorer has called a 'pornography of death', whereby all practices surrounding death should be done out of public view, just like sexual pornography, it is important to understand how public death and dying were in medieval and early modern Europe. The module takes a comparative approach, comparing and contrasting ways of dying, burial, attitudes to good and bad death, especially suicide, expectations of the afterlife, and the experience of famine and plague, in medieval and early modern Europe. The ways in which a society treated death reveals a great deal about its assumptions and ideas, and so this module offers a fascinating insight into the social, religious and cultural history of a world which is very different from our own. | ||||||
| HIS-30105 | The Kingship of Edward II, II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Most people know at least one thing about Edward II. But, it wasn't a poker, it was a plumber's rod; and historians have never quite managed to rule out the bizarre story that Edward survived imprisonment, and lived out his final years in comfortable exile in Italy, no doubt next to the McDonald's in which Elvis later worked. In the popular imagination Edward started out his rule with a boyfriend, but lost his throne to a conspiracy led by his wife and her lover. $ùThe king, the boyfriend, the wife, and her lover', so to speak. The rule of Edward II (1307-1327) marks one of several moments of crisis in the English middle ages. There is a narrative unity to the reign and the relatively short timescale allows students to feel that they have really got to grips with a period. Political opposition to the king was an early feature, initially focused on Edward's friendship with Peter Gaveston, but also embodied more general constitutional issues in which contemporaries struggled with ways in which the king's person and his office could be seen as separate. The king's sexuality and later that of his wife are other themes. Opposition turned into rebellion and civil war, and the period was marked by political murders and executions, including those of three earls, a bishop and the king himself. The European economy during the period 1315-1320 is usually seen as displaying the first symptoms of the late medieval general crisis which included famine, cattle plague and the rise of public disorder. The contemporary French court was riven by sexual intrigue, and the campaign to expel the Templars. In Scotland Edward's rule saw Robert Bruce's prosecution of a successful war of independence from England following the battle of Bannockburn, and an attempt to invade Ireland. Paradoxically this era coincides with a period of great cultural originality in architecture and manuscript illumination. The Decorated style in English architecture is a movement of international significance. The Luttrell psalter, an oft-illustrated manuscript, has its roots in the reign. Both Edward II and his principal opponent, Thomas of Lancaster, were the subjects of religious cults. The historiography of Edward's troubled reign was early the subject of a substantial historiography. In the sixteenth century Christopher Marlowe wrote a play on the king's life, as did Brecht in the twentieth. There are more modern echoes in Derek Jarman's film Edward II and in Mel Gibson's treatment of the life of William Wallace, the Scottish hero, in Braveheart. There is a recent new biography of the king, studies of some of his major opponents, and a new edition of the principle chronicle of the reign. Students are able to pursue interests in social, political, literary and economic history, and also in architectural history. There is a good literature in English and a wide range of possible dissertation topics. One student from this special went on to complete a PhD, another to an M.Phil. There will be ONE residential field trip to Tewkesbury abbey (mausoleum of the Clares and the Despensers), Gloucester cathedral (tomb of Edward II) and Caerfilli castle. | ||||||
| HIS-30107 | Suffrage Stories: representations | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| This module allows you to study, in depth, the ways in which the British campaign to give women the vote has been represented by historians and within popular culture Many stories have been told about the women and men who gave their energies, health and even lives to this cause. This module looks at the different ways in which historians have interpreted this struggle and the ways in which these narratives were deployed at the time as well as more recently. In order to identify the different suffrage stories that have been told and how they have been re-told in popular culture, we will not only study a range of historiographical approaches from the misogynist to the radical feminist but we will also analyse a range of cultural sources. These might include banners, posters, games, cups and saucers, adverts, fiction (novels, poetry, plays), music-hall songs as well as more recent novels (such as the Nell Bray detective stories) and films (such as Mary Poppins). What stories did suffragists choose to tell through popular culture and how was their struggle represented visually, orally and in everyday objects? How have suffrage stories been told and re-told in recent popular culture? This module will help you to answer these questions while expanding your historical skills in interpreting historiography and reading a range of cultural objects. | ||||||
| HIS-30113 | The Making of Contemporary Africa II | EP | M | 7.5 | 15 | |
| Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, the module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa c.1945 to the present. The course uses the latest scholarship and, in challenging a hitherto dominant national historiography, emphasises the importance of both the $ùlocal&© (e.g. diverse subaltern experiences in Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, South Africa or Nigeria) and the $ùglobal&© (e.g. decolonisation, socialism, postcolonialism and pan-Africanism), in shaping Africa. Perhaps most controversially, the module asks: do you have to be black to be African? And is Africa, as The Economist recently wrote, a 'hopeless continent', inherently violent, poor and diseased? While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and former British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial legacies within Africa. This will enable students to critically analyse a variety of historiographical approaches to African history and introduce them to a range of primary source materials which have been utilised by historians to interpret key events and processes. For example, students will have a chance to read the works of: Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong&©o, Julius Nyerere, Walter Rodney, George Padmore, and recent works by people like C. N. Adichie and Thabo Mbeki. Films and other media formats will also be incorporated into the module's analysis, as will official documents. | ||||||