History with Year Abroad

This module introduces students to the core skills required to study history successfully at degree level. History makes sense of the past by analysing surviving evidence. Such evidence is either secondary, which requires in-depth critical reading, or primary or original, which demands critical contextualisation and analysis. All such evidence has uses to the historian, not necessarily obvious, and all contains partiality, which historians are trained to overcome. Working in small groups with one staff member per group, there will be a balance between developing awareness of these overarching core skills (such as conducting research and mastering referencing conventions) and a case study where students work on academic reading connected to a particular topic. This intensive small group environment will help students adjust to the university environment and provide a venue for delivering other transitional and transferrable skills.

This module takes a broadly chronological approach to world history, examining key themes, events and ‘turning points' from the Classical world to the present day. It will consider the rise and fall of civilizations in Europe and around the world, including Ancient Greece, Rome, China, and the Americas, before moving on to consider the ‘global Middle Ages’, the emergence of more complex states and empires, religious reformations in the Christian and Islamic worlds, scientific and technological innovations, and increasing global connectivity and exchange during the early modern period. Finally, it will address the ‘rise of the modern’ through urbanization, industrialization, and mass politics, including its diffusion, resistance, and the alternative paths societies around the world have taken to get to the present.

This module builds upon Sources & Approaches in History, further developing students’ skills as independent researchers, and giving students an opportunity to do research of a critical nature, using both primary and secondary sources. Continuing to work in the same Case Study groups as, and on a related topic to, Sources & Approaches, students undertake an individual research project, on a topic negotiated with a tutor. In addition, there will be an element of group work as students combine their individual findings, presenting on a subtopic of the module’s overarching theme. As this module concentrates upon developing skills there is an emphasis on training for future employment. Students will be expected to engage with careers service activities in semester 2 and to report their activities in a reflective blog.

This module builds on Perspectives in World History by taking a more thematic approach to the broad sweep of global history. It introduces first year history students to important themes in global history, and challenges them to think critically about the contours that have shaped different cultures over time. It encourages students to explore how various factors have developed and travelled across different social and cultural contexts, placing strong emphasis on the interconnections of societies in the past. This is done with a focus on various themes for example, technology and economy, ecology, disease and famine, migration, gender and religion. Students are encouraged to make comparisons that will enable them to deconstruct the simplistic binaries of ‘science’ vs ‘religion’ and ‘modern’ versus ‘traditional’ societies, to explore more fully how cultural and material exchange occurred between different societies.

Practising History 1 provides an overview of ‘doing History’ from the Classical period onwards. It examines the ideas that have underpinned historical research and writing, from Herodotus to Post-Modernity, as well as recent theories of history (many of which have been drawn from other disciplines and including post-colonialism, gender and identity, spatial theory) as they have been used by historians. It provides students with an opportunity to think reflexively about the nature of the historical enterprise. Students are encouraged to link their studies in Practising History 1 with their other second-year modules. This module principally examines the ways in which British historians have worked from the early medieval period to c.2000.  It investigates the influences which shaped their approaches (including, e.g., the work of foreign scholars such as Leopold von Ranke and the historians of the French Annales School). It also investigates theories of history – e.g. Marxist ideas.  It emphasizes the expansion of historical interests and the methodologies which have permitted fresh areas of study in the last thirty years and looks at the current practice of history.

This module considers the planning and preparation of research and the methods and skills used, with particular reference to – but not sole consideration of – the dissertation. A wide range of historical approaches and methods are assessed, including use of local and national archives, databases and online sources, media and newspapers, visual images, standing remains, landscape and the material environment, public history, oral sources and scientific data. Ethics in historical research are also examined.

• Work placement
• Group project
• Field Trip
• Histories on Screen 
• Exploring Past Localities 
• Volunteering for History

Source Studies:

• The First English Empire: c. 1100 to c. 1350 
• Culture and Society in Late Medieval England 
• Excommunication, False Monks, and Holy Satan: The Papal Imperial Conflict, 1070-1122 
• Women Writing and Writing about Women in the Early Middle Ages 
• Emirs and Caliphs of Al-Andalus: Iberia under the Umayyads, 756–1031 CE 
• The Global Middle Ages 
• The Golden Age of Spain 
• Religion, Politics & Society in Early Tudor England, 1485-1558 
• The Global Hispanic World (1760s-1980s) 
• Victorian Culture and Society 
• Imperial Japan  
• The British Raj, from the 'Indian Mutiny' to Gandhi - 1857-1947 
• The American South 1865-1970 
• Nazism and the Holocaust 
• From Austerity to Affluence: Everyday Life in Post-war Britain 
• From Dracula to Jack the Ripper: The Immigrant and the Imagination 

Theme Studies:

• The Age of the Vikings 
• Societies at War – England and France, 1189-1529 
• The Crusades 
• The Iron Century: European Politics and Power in the Tenth Century 
• Feud, Vengeance and Justice in Europe, c. 1000 to 1600 
• Food and Drink in Medieval and Early Modern England 
• The Renaissance Court: Power. Politics and Patronage 
• Culture, Society and Economy in Early Modern England   
• The Rise of the High-Speed Society (18th-20th centuries) 
• American Slavery 
• History’s Eye – Photography and Society 
• Sisterhood – Before and After: Feminism in Twentieth Century Britain 
• Political Violence in Twentieth Century Europe 
• ‘Subordinate Independence’: Japan’s Relationship with the US 1945-  present 
• Dreams and Nightmares: Britain in Twentieth Century Europe 
• Welcome to the Anthropocene: Histories for the Environmental Crisis 

It is your year to study at your chosen university abroad.

The Dissertation (Extended Independent Study) is an 8,000 -10,000 thesis on a subject of a student’s choice. It makes an original contribution to historical knowledge and understanding. It demonstrates an advanced capacity to work as a historian and to employ the conventions of a historian.  Students must produce by due deadlines a proposal acceptable to internal scrutineers, evidence of substantial progress by the end of the first module as part of the assessment for the Research Methods module, and a record of supervision completed by the supervisor with the Dissertation.

This module is taught through small seminar groups only. In these groups, students will be able to explore the nature of historical research and historical debate through reflection on their own dissertation and the sharing of best practice with other students. It will allow a more supportive learning environment whilst ensuring a more active engagement with individual research.

History Matters asks to students to engage with the process of accessing the past both through History as an academic discipline and alternatively in public history. Through the study of a variety of uses of the past in areas such as politics, journalism and popular media, students will engage with the methodological problems and nuances in studying History at degree level. This module will allow students to develop a more nuanced understanding of both popular and academic approaches to the past and to consider the applicability of academic history in more popular arenas.

Depth Studies:

The Wars of the Roses 1450-1499 

Civil War, Revolution and Republic in the British Isles 

The United States and the Cold War 1945-63 

Japan at War and Under Occupation 1937-52 

The Italian Wars 1494-1516 and 1521-1559 

Genocide in History and Memory  

Ruling England in the Second Viking Age 

The Age of Napoleon in Global Perspective  

The Post-war Teenager, 1945-1979  

The Maghreb, Colonialism and Its Aftermath in North Africa and France 1827-Present 

An Accidental Revolution: the Emergence and Dominance of the Italian City Commune, c.1000-c.1255  

The Anarchy:  The Anglo-Norman Civil War 1135-1154 

Pax Romana: From the Julio-Claudians to the Severans, AD 14-235

Comparative Studies:

Supernatural and Witchcraft Beliefs in the British Isles, Continental Europe, and America c.1450-1800 

Mediterranean Fascism: Conflict and Dictatorship in Spain and Italy 1914-1947 

War Crimes Trials and Memories of War: Japan and Germany 

The Monstrous Regiment: Gender and Authority in Early Modern Europe 

Holocaust Memory and Representation in Europe, the United States & Israel 

Ideas, Ideologies and Colonial Organisation in the British and French Empires 

Borderlands and Commodities in History 

Warfare in the Medieval West from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century 

The Middle Ages in Computer Games 

The ‘Swinging’ Sixties 

Chivalry – Knighthood, Warfare and Culture in Medieval Europe 

Popular Protest in Late Medieval Europe 

Forced to Flee: Refugees in a Century of Crisis 

The Black Death 

Hostages, Prisoners and Slaves: Captivity in the Middle Ages