Year 1 Semester 2 – Compulsory Module (30 credits)* HIST1150 – World Ideologies: The Ideas that Made the World *Compulsory for all students reading BA History (single honours only) Module Overview Ideas are fundamental to human societies and culture. Some, though, are identified by the term ‘ideology’, which indicates that they are all-‐embracing, and form the basis for an entire worldview, or a means of understanding the patterns of life and society. Ideologies can become the basis for much of an individual's identity, and as such are forces of great power and historical importance. Understanding ideologies thus provides a key means for understanding the minds of historical individuals, or, beyond the individual, much of the basis for politics and political organisation. Indeed, ideologies can give the ideas and moral authorisation for some to try to control or to transform politics, society and culture, and are highly influential in bringing about historical change. Indicative List of Seminar Topics This module is designed to introduce you to some key ideologies and to allow consideration of how ideologies have influenced societies and shaped history. The greater part of the module is built around week-‐long investigations of specific ideologies, selected for their long-‐term impact and global influence. These include examples such as Multiculturalism, Marxism and Imperialism. For each ideology, you will hear a broad, introductory lecture which will explain the basics of each ideology and highlight different historical case studies associated with them. This will be followed by a more specific lecture which will engage with the key texts for each ideology, and which will link to the seminar. The seminar will involve you in discussion about a seminal text related to the ideology and its impact. The aim of the seminar will be for you to bring together themes from the lecture and relate them to the text, and to discuss the effect of the ideas under discussion. 49
% Contribution to Final Mark 15 Assessment 35 50 Assessment Method 1 x 1 page essay proposal 1 x Report (1000 words) 1 x Essay (2000 words) Sample Source ‘Were all these dreadful things necessary? Were they the inevitable results of the desperate struggle of determined patriots, compelled to wade through blood and tumult, to the quiet shore of a tranquil and prosperous liberty? No! Nothing like it. The fresh ruins of France, which shock our feelings wherever we can turn our eyes, are not the devastation of civil war; they are the sad but instructive monuments of rash and ignorant counsel in time of profound peace.’ Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) Although many of his contemporaries and colleagues welcomed the events that took place in France in the summer of 1789, Edmund Burke vehemently opposed the Revolution. In arguing against the ideas and ideologies of the French Revolution, Burke drew on a different set of ideas to explain and justify the structure of society. His book, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ignited a great debate in Britain and beyond, and it continues to be influential today. Priced at three shillings, it sold 30,000 copies in two years, and its language and imagery have passed into British political discourse. 50
Year 1 Semester 2 – Ancient History Compulsory Module (15 credits)* HIST1154 – Ancient History: Sources and Controversies (Dr Helen Spurling) *Compulsory for all students reading BA Ancient History Left: Roman copy of a bust of Herodotus (484-‐425 BCE); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Right: Fragment of Herodotus’ Histories on papyrus, early 2nd cent. CE (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2099). Module Overview The history of the ancient world is hugely significant for understanding subsequent periods of history and the origins of ideas and institutions of global significance. However, the nature of the ancient world continues to be highly debated due to the sources and evidence available to historians for understanding this period. This module looks at the societies and cultures of the ancient world through their written texts, visual art and material remains. What types of evidence are available to ancient historians? What makes them significant and exciting? What perspectives do they present? What is the relationship between literature or materials remains and the socio-‐political world in which they were produced? The aim of this module is to introduce you to different types of sources in study of the ancient world, and how to approach and analyse them as historical sources. Over the course of the module, you will be introduced to literary, material and visual evidence from Herodotus (484-‐425 BCE) to Procopius (500-‐560 CE), from buildings and monuments to art, coins and inscriptions, covering Greek, Roman and Byzantine history. In this way, the module will provide you with background knowledge and analytical skills useful throughout the rest of your degree and beyond. 51
% Contribution to Final Mark Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Introduction: Themes and Approaches • Greek, Roman, and Late Antique Historiography • Epic and Poetry • Oratory and Politics • Philosophy • Geography and Travel Writing • The Study of Ancient Inscriptions • Integrating Written Sources and Material Remains Assessment Assessment Method 1 x Commentaries exercise (3 x 500 words) 30 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x take-‐away gobbets exercise (3 x 500 words) 30 Sample Source ‘In this book I will write the biographies of King Alexander and of Caesar – the Caesar who overthrew Pompey. Now, given the number of their exploits available to me, the only preamble I shall make is to beg the reader not to complain if I fail to relate all of them or to deal exhaustively with a particular famous one, but keep my account brief. I am not writing history but biography, and the most outstanding exploits do not always have the property of revealing the goodness or the badness of the agent; often, in fact, a casual action, the odd phrase, or a jest reveals character better than battles involving the loss of thousands upon thousands of lives, huge troop movements, and whole cities besieged. And so, just as a painter reproduces his subject’s likeness by concentrating on the face and the expression of the eyes, by means of which character is revealed, and pays hardly any attention to the rest of the body, I must be allowed to devote more time to those aspects which indicate a person’s mind and to use these to portray the life of each of my subjects, while leaving their major exploits and battles to others.’ Plutarch (46-‐120 CE), Life of Alexander 1, Plutarch: Hellenistic Lives, trans. R. Waterfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) This extract from the beginning of Plutarch’s Life of Alexander highlights a range of aspects relevant to the study of the ancient world, concerning historical context, genre, and the limitations (but also opportunities) of the source material available to us. Plutarch wrote his biography of Alexander the Great (356-‐323 BCE) centuries after the conqueror’s death, as part of a series of Parallel Lives comparing famous figures from the Greek world with Roman counterparts (in this case Caesar). The extent to which we can use Plutarch as a source for ancient history is debated not only due to the chronological distance to his subjects, but also due to Plutarch’s here self-‐declared intention not to write history but biography, and the moral tone which pervades his work. That said, Plutarch’s Life is our main source for the early life of Alexander the Great, about which little would otherwise be known. 52
Year 1 Semester 2 – Ancient History Compulsory Module (15 credits)* ARCH1062 – Wonderful Things: World History Told Through Objects (Dr Alastair Pike) *Compulsory for all students reading BA Ancient History Module Overview As he broke the seal and opened the door to Tutankamun’s tomb, archaeologist Howard Carter declared, breathlessly, that he could see ‘Wonderful things’. Ancient things have this special appeal. They enchant and captivate. They excite curiosity and unleash enthusiasm. But above all they are the way to tell big histories through small objects. In this module we set out to tell the seamless history of deep-‐time, from two million years ago to the maritime foundations of the modern world. Through our deep-‐history we will examine the motives behind making, acquiring, preserving and keeping things; the pride and passion of people in the past, the constantly changing desire of humanity for the sumptuous, the aesthetically pleasing and the exotic. To do this our archaeological experts have chosen a variety of objects from deep-‐history; starting with the stone handaxes of Africa and ending with the fatal voyage of the Mary Rose. During your historical journey you will learn about changing technologies and food-‐ways, the things that glued Empires together, concepts of citizenship, icons of faith and the variety of objects used in social networking and games of power. By the end you will have a different understanding both of history and wonderful, handmade, things. 53
% Contribution to Final Mark Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Introduction: Making us Human • Taming Nature • Laying Foundations • The First Cities and States • Empires and Faiths • Threshold of the Modern World Assessment Assessment Method Group exhibition 40 1 x Report (2,000 words) 60 Sample Source Incan Khipu, Peru, c. 1430-‐1530 AD, British Museum Collection In a complex society without writing, the Incan Khipu acted as a record and accounting system. Still encoded and shrouded in mystery today, we learn from the Spanish accounts that they recorded complex stories about Kings, genealogy and census data. Is this early binary information storage, or were these mnemonic devices read in a different way? From the Quechua for ‘knot’, how we understand this form of knotted string record is still debated. 54
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1008 – A Tudor Revolution in Government? (Professor George W. Bernard) Module Overview This module is an exploration of how England was governed in the sixteenth century. How far did kings and queens rule as well as reign? What was the nature of monarchical government? What was the role of the court and of faction? The aims of this module are to: enable you to study the nature of government in Tudor England; consider the epistemology and significance of the lively historiographical arguments that have marked this subject; and explore how fruitful the concept of a revolution is in the study of the history of government and politics, and of history in general. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Kingship in Tudor England • The royal court, including culture • Council and counsel, consent and tyranny • The Nobility and gentry • Parliament • Military power • Finance and taxation 55
% Contribution to Final Mark 20 • Institutions of central government 40 • Local government and the challenge of enforcement 40 Assessment Assessment Method 1 x Book review (750 words) 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 1 x Exam (1 hour) Sample Source ‘Remembrances at my next going to the Court. For redress of the riots in the North. Letters to be written to Sir John Wallop. To declare Irish matters to the King, and desire what shall be done there. To send letters and money into Ireland, and advise the Deputy of the King's pleasure. To advertise the King of the ordering of Master Fisher, and to show him the indenture which I have delivered to the solicitor. To know his pleasure touching Master More, and declare the opinion of the judges. To declare to him the proceedings in his cause of uses and wills. To declare the effect of Master Pate's letters. To remember specially Master Shelley and Brothers for his concealment. To remember Sir Walter Hungerford in his welldoings. When Master Fisher shall go to execution, and also the other. What shall be done further touching Master More.’ J.S. Brewer, J. Gairdner and R.H. Brodie, eds., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII (21 vols in 36, 1862-‐1932), VIII 892 [June 1535], is a summary of British Library, Cotton MS, Titus, B i. fo. 474. It is one of many remembrances – lists of things to do – made by Henry VIII’s leading minister Thomas Cromwell, or by Cromwell’s secretary. Sir Geoffrey Elton (1921-‐94) made great claims that Thomas Cromwell master-‐minded a ‘Tudor Revolution in Government’, and went as far as to claim that ‘Cromwell, not Henry [VIII], was really the government’. Cromwell’s memoranda throw interesting light on the relationship between king and minister. It is striking how often Cromwell makes a note of the need to know the king’s pleasure. Here Henry was being asked for instructions on how Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher, who refused to support the king over the break with Rome, should be dealt with. Does that suggest that it was the king, not Cromwell, who was very much in command? 56
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1074 – The Battle of Agincourt (Dr Andrew King) Module Overview At Agincourt in 1415, ‘the flower of French chivalry' was destroyed by an English army led by Henry V, invading France in pursuit of his claim to the French crown. It is one of the most celebrated battles in English history, made famous by Shakespeare. But how do we know what actually happened on that St Crispin's day? How accurately can the dramatic but confused events of the battle be reconstructed? Can we determine exactly how and why the outnumbered English managed to inflict such a catastrophic defeat on the French? The module explores the often contradictory chronicle accounts of the battle, both English and French, and contemporary and later; we shall examine the accuracy of these accounts, and how they are influenced and shaped by national and political biases, and cultural factors such as religion and chivalry. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Why did the Battle of Agincourt happen? • Anglo-‐French relations in the early fifteenth century • How and why was the battle commented on by chroniclers? • Early literary responses to the battle • Tudor depictions of the battle – Hall, Holinshed and Henry V • How has the battle been depicted in TV documentaries? 57
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘In pursuing the king of England’s victory and seeing his enemy defeated and that they could no longer resist him, the English had started to take prisoners hoping all to become rich. That indeed was a valid belief, for all the great lords were at the battle.* Once taken, they had their helmets removed by their captors. Then a great misfortune befell them. Many of the rearguard [of the French army], in which were several French, Bretons, Gascons, Poitevins and others who had been put to flight, regrouped. They had with them a large number of standards and ensigns and showed signs of wanting to fight, marching forward in battle order. When the English saw them together in this fashion it was ordered by the king of England that each man should kill his prisoner. … When the wretched French who had caused the death of these noble knights, they all took to flight to save their own lives if they could.’ * [This sentence is in Le Fèvre’s account but not Waurin’s] The Battle of Agincourt: Sources and Interpretations, ed. Anne Curry (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 164-‐5 The battle of Agincourt is one of the famous victories in English history; and Henry V’s massacre of prisoners at the battle is one of the most infamous incidents at the battle. This account justifies Henry’s actions, by presenting them in terms of military necessity, caused by ‘the wretched French’ of the rearguard. What makes this particularly interesting, is that this account was written in France. It is taken from an account of the battle which appears in two chronicles: Jean le Fèvre’s Chronique, and Jean de Waurin’s Gathering of the Chronicles and Ancient Histories of Great Britain, now called England. Both authors were in the service of the Dukes of Burgundy, a noble French dynasty of royal descent, who ruled over much of western France and Flanders, and followed their own policy – independently of their nominal lords, the kings of France. Le Fèvre was a Frenchman and a herald; Waurin was the bastard son of a Flemish nobleman, and a soldier. Both were present at the battle, le Fèvre as a 19 year-‐old herald accompanying the English, and Waurin as a 15 year-‐old with the French. Both were therefore eye-‐witnesses; yet their accounts are virtually identical, barring a few, but significant, differences. Furthermore, both were writing decades after the battle, with the benefit of hindsight. So how reliable are these accounts in constructing what happened in the battle? Are they more dependable because their authors were there? Was one drawing on the work of the other – or did they compose their accounts in consultation together? Why do these French accounts justify the English massacre of French prisoners? Were they influenced by the long-‐standing rivalries and antagonisms between the dukes of Burgundy and the king’s of France? The course will explore how the differing agendas and circumstances behind the different sources for the battle of Agincourt have shaped the perceptions of a famous historical event. 58
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1085 – German Jews in Great Britain after 1933 (Professor Joachim Schlör) Module Overview The module tries to build a bridge between the fields of German-‐Jewish history and the history of Jews in Britain. It will give an overview of the situation of Jews in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, focussing on the Weimar Republic and the years shortly before and after 1933. It explores the emigration policy of the regime in Germany and the British attitudes toward immigration. The module will then take a closer look at the processes of immigration (organisation; arrival; distribution in the country) and at the different ways of integration and adaption in Britain. Special attention will be given to personal memoirs and other personal documents as a source for the research of this topic. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • The history of Jews in Germany since the Enlightenment • Jewish life and culture in Weimar Germany and in inter-‐War Britain • Jewish reactions to the Nazi seizure of power in Germany • Emigration politics in Germany and Europe • Arriving in Britain • Personal documents of German-‐Jewish immigrants • German-‐Jewish circles and “landsmannshaften” in Britain • Contributions (Film, Literature etc.) • Remembering the Kindertransport • Exhibitions: Past and Present 59
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 50 1 x Exam (1 hour) 50 Sample Source ‘Miss Rosenthal came to England five months ago to learn English and whilst she was trying very hard she found that she was physically not fit to adapt herself to the duties she was requested to do. Miss Rosenthal is a typically academic type of girl and when we were asked to interest ourselves in her we did so because we actually needed somebody on our foreign department. We require somebody who is especially acquainted with German books on technical and general subjects and she has had five years experience in bookshops in Frankfurt and Heilbronn. Through various channels we have tried to get an assistant suitable to do that work, but have not been successful. We are the only bookshop in Birmingham who sells these types of books and the requests for the same are definitely increasing. It is therefore essential that we should have somebody well versed in these particular lines in our bookshop. We shall feel greatly obliged if you will reconsider your decision conveyed to us in your letter. We are prepared to give Miss Rosenthal every opportunity to increase her knowledge of English so that she will not only find a post with us, but prepare for a future career which unfortunately has been denied to her in her home country.’ The letter belongs to a private collection that will be donated to the city archives of Heilbronn, Germany. It has been published in Joachim Schlör, ‘Liesel, it’s time for you to leave’. Die Flucht der Familie Rosenthal vor nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung. Heilbronn Stadtarchiv 2016 The owner of the Hudson bookshop in Birmingham sends a letter to the British Home Office, early October 1937. Strict immigration laws make it difficult for employers to hire refugees. Liesel Rosenthal came to England in May 1937, as a domestic servant. In the course of the following 18 months she would manage to bring her parents and her brother out of Nazi Germany. The image overleaf is a document which shows that Liesel Rosenthal has found the guarantors who would financially support her parents after their immigration – six months before the beginning of the war. The German Jewish Aid Committee in London’s Bloomsbury House played a crucial role in the efforts to integrate Jewish refugees. 60
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1102 – The End of the World: Apocalyptic Visions of History (Dr Helen Spurling) Module Overview Apocalyptic texts are important because they represent an expression of political turmoil or social and cultural fears. They shed light on attitudes to historical events and to surrounding cultures at crucial periods in the development of world history. ‘The End of the World’ introduces you to the cultural and historical contexts of apocalyptic ideology in Late Antiquity (Palestine under Greek and Roman rule up to and including the emergence of Islam). It explores how concepts of the end of time and afterlife present a response to historical events such as the Maccabean Revolt, the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, the Byzantine-‐Persian Wars, or the Arab conquests. This module examines the Jewish and Christian communities that produced apocalypses, the historical value of apocalypses for understanding the period of Late Antiquity, and what they teach about intercultural relations in this period. Throughout, we will examine the relevance of apocalyptic thinking for today’s world. 61
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • What is apocalypticism? • The Maccabean Revolt • Jewish war against Rome • Byzantine-‐Persian wars • The rise of Islam • Imperialism and Messianism • Resistance and Life after Death • Justice and injustice Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2x500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘On the second night I had a dream, and behold, there came up from the sea an eagle that had twelve feathered wings and three heads. […] And I looked, and behold, the eagle flew with his wings, to reign over the earth and over those who dwell in it. And I saw how all things under heaven were subjected to him, and no one spoke against him. […] you will surely disappear, you eagle, and your terrifying wings, and your most evil little wings, and your malicious heads, and your most evil talons, and your whole worthless body, so that the whole earth, freed from your violence, may be refreshed and relieved.’ 4 Ezra 11 in Charlesworth, J. H., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol.1 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983), 548-‐549. Over the centuries, the threat of an impending apocalypse has often been used as a literary medium to express social and political change and any accompanying fears. 4 Ezra is a Jewish apocalyptic text from the first century CE that provides a severe indictment of the Roman Empire – the Eagle – in the aftermath of the Jewish War with Rome in 66-‐74 CE. It provides us with an important and subversive perspective on the unwelcome dominance of Roman rule for the Jews, and their hopes for the destruction of this ‘worthless’ empire. 62
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1113 – The Crimean War (Professor David Brown) Module Overview The Crimean War (1853-‐56) was the most important Great Power conflict fought between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of World War One in 1914. Yet its causes are uncertain and the way it was fought was often paradoxical: modern techniques of warfare, media reporting and medical care did not prevent this being a war characterised by blunder and incompetence, all played out in the glare of public scrutiny. Reputations were made and broken, Great Powers were humbled; we might ask did anyone win this war? Yet on the battlefield and beyond the implications and lessons of the war were wide-‐reaching for societies, economies and governments. This module therefore asks why did the war break out and how was it fought, while also examining its impact and legacy beyond the battlefield. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • The war’s impact on international relations and the domestic histories of those countries involved (Russia, Turkey, Britain, France, and Sardinia) • The Eastern Question – how the Powers would deal with the anticipated collapse of the Ottoman Empire • International relations and the diplomatic origins of war • An examination of the importance of the cultural and religious dimensions of a conflict • The role of media in the coverage of the war (the “first media war”) • Florence Nightingale and the medical shortcomings of the war • Military failures and blunders, and the modernising impact of the war • Memory and commemoration of the conflict 63
% Contribution to Final Mark 20 Assessment 40 40 Assessment Method 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 1 x Exam (1 hour) Sample Source ‘A Consultation about the State of Turkey’, Punch, 17 Sept. 1853 This cartoon, published in the British magazine Punch, nicely captures something of what this war was about. Turkey, the ‘Sick Man of Europe’, lies in bed, while Russia hovers over in the guise of Death. Meanwhile Britain (John Bull) and France (Napoleon III) debate how best to remedy the situation. Such images would have been familiar to 19th century audiences, but raise important questions that are not necessarily straightforward: Was Turkey dying? Why was Russia such a menace? What, if anything, could Britain and France do, and why would they bother? 64
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1164 – Consuls, Dictators and Emperors: Roman Politics in the First Century BC (Dr Alan Ross) Module Overview The first century BC witnessed the fall of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the first emperor, Augustus. The first two-‐thirds of the century were marked by increasingly divisive Civil Wars and the emergence of a series of infamous political figures whilst the final third saw the beginning of the Principate – rule by a single man or Princeps. Augustus ruled alone for more than 40 years, and by the time of his death, the political landscape had changed to the extent that there was no serious thought of returning to the traditional Republic. The first part of the module examines the late Republic: the system of magistracies, the democratic element, and the emergence of charismatic leaders who disrupted this system such as Marius, Sulla and Caesar. The second part deals with the events following the assassination of Julius Caesar, the emergence of Augustus as sole ruler, and the transformation of the Republican institutions to allow for a sole ruler. 65
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Introduction: context and sources • The Roman Republic: the aristocratic element • The Roman Republic: the democratic element • Marius and Sulla • Pompey • Caesar • Cicero and New Men • Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra • A new political system • Augustus and the Senate • A new era for Rome? Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘From that time on Julius Caesar could not rid himself of the odium of having aspired to the title of monarch, although he replied to the people, when they hailed him as king, \"I am Caesar and no king,\" and at the festival of the Lupercalia, when the consul Antony several times attempted to place a crown upon his head as he spoke from the rostra, he put it aside and at last sent it to the Capitol, to be offered to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.’ Suetonius, Life of the Divine Julius Ever since they deposed their last king and established the Republic, the Romans, especially the aristocracy, had a great suspicion of monarchs. Julius Caesar’s seizure of the constitutional office of ‘Dictator’ made him seem too much like a dreaded king, as Caesar’s biographer Suetonius alludes to here. It was Caesar’s monarchical behaviour that hastened his assassination on the floor of the Senate House, an event that also paved the way for a far more politically astute figure – Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus – to learn from Caesar’s shortcomings and finally overthrow the Republic. 66
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1084 – Cities of the Dead: Ritual, Mourning and the Victorian City, 1820-‐1914 (Dr Jonathan Conlin) Module Overview It is a commonplace to see our Victorian forebears as squeamish, repressed and uncommunicative. As in other, more familiar fields such as the history of gender and sexuality, so in matters of death this tired cliché is seriously wrong. Our twenty-‐first century approach to death is to curtail public displays of grief and mourning, to limit contact with the deceased and to avoid the subject whenever possible, either as \"unlucky\", \"morbid\" or \"in poor taste\". We, not the Victorians, are the squeamish and repressed ones. This change from celebration (\"to celebrate\" as in, \"to honour or observe a significant milestone or event\") to denial is itself a historical one, and all participants in this course will be invited to consider how and why it happened, as well as consider what today’s attitudes say about the society in which we live. Elements of this course will inevitably involve discussion of practical questions of mortality and the disposal of dead bodies that might appear grisly – partly because the dead have been relegated to the margins of our lives. Other parts of the course will involve studying concepts of divine judgment, the afterlife and other religious beliefs which have also become alien to many. The Christian concept of a \"good death\", for example, seems a total contradiction in terms today. How can any death be \"good\"? Yet the issues involved in the story of Victorian death – of inter-‐denominational rivalry and cooperation, of state vs. free-‐market provision of social services, of sustainable town planning – are ones we find raised today, again and again, at home and abroad. 67
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • In search of a \"Good Death\" • Classic vs. Gothic Cemetery Architecture (at Southampton Old Cemetery) • Object handling session (Victorian jet/hairwork jewellery, other items of mourning dress) • Great Victorian Mourners: Discuss how your assigned Eminent Victorian mourned • The Rise of Cremation (at Southampton Crematorium) Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Museum label exercise (200 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source Blind-‐stamped and engraved mourning card for Alfred Thomas (1879), courtesy of Southampton Museums. The mourning card shown here is particularly ornate, employing blind stamping (the cut-‐out and impressed relief decoration) alongside black and white engraved letterpress. Only a well-‐to-‐do middle-‐ or upper-‐class Southampton family could have afforded to commission a printer to print a batch of such cards. This card was probably sent to a friend of bereaved family, who would have displayed it on their parlour mantelpiece, alongside wedding and other invitations. The verse is notable for the absence of any reference to an afterlife. Similar verse on contemporary mourning cards and headstones takes comfort in the knowledge that the departed had \"gone to Jesus”. The card is a bleak reminder that, despite improvements in sanitation, infant mortality remained high in High Victorian Britain, even for families with ample means. 68
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1089 – Histories of Empire (Dr Christer Petley) Module Overview This unit considers the topics of colonialism and colonial rule, and it looks at the ways in which historians have approached these. The main aim is to allow students to focus on selected historiographical themes and historical documents, rather than providing a comprehensive overview of western colonialism. Most of the content, case studies, and documents will relate to the British empire. We will look at the history of the British empire, looking at different regions affected by British imperialism and colonial rule. There will be brief introductions to these regions, designed to give you a sense of how people in each experienced contact with British colonialism and of how colonisation and imperial rule unfolded, as well as this, there will be opportunities for more detailed discussion of particular case studies. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Defining ‘empire’ • Empire and independence • Slavery and abolition • The British Raj and hunting • Livingstone and Stanley • ‘Shooting an Elephant’ 69
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘ Dr Livingstone, I presume!’ [From Henry Morton Stanley, How I Found Livingstone, 1872.] Stanley, an American journalist and explorer, met the Scottish missionary Dr David Livingstone at the town of Ujiji, on the banks of Lake Tanganyika in 1872, uttering these immortal words. Or did he? Stanley certainly found Livingstone, a well-‐known figure who had been lost in Africa for several months, but we can be a little less certain about what he said to him. Stanley was a great self-‐publicist, writing dramatic accounts of his meeting with Livingstone and thriving on the fame it brought him. Perhaps he judged that his American and British audiences would be amused by this incongruous turn of phrase! Still, what matters more than the words is the symbolism of the event. A version of imperialism personified by the Christian antislavery of David Livingstone was giving way to a more aggressive, more racist version, personified in many ways by Stanley’s gung-‐ho and self-‐congratulatory approach to exploration—activities that paved the way for the so-‐called ‘Scramble for Africa’ (although ‘Scramble of Africa’ might be a more appropriate phrase) during the years that followed. 70
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1145 – From Shah to Ayatollah: The Establishment of Clerical Power in Iran (1979 to Today) (Dr Hormoz Ebrahimnejad) Module Overview The 1979 Revolution unexpectedly established a clerical regime in Iran for the first time in its history. What were the roots and consequences of this Revolution? This module surveys this history from an anti-‐Shah movement initiated by university students culminating in the 1979 Revolution, to the Islamic Revolution. The 1979 and Islamic Revolutions are often discussed as one and the same in the dominant political and even historiographical discourses. In this module we will test the validity of this narrative against the developments from 1978 to 1980. In this short period changes occurred with great speed: On the eve of January 1978 Carter assured over a toast for the New Year in Tehran that Iran was the isle of stability in the region under the guidance of the Shah; on 16 January 1979 the Shah was forced to leave the country for exile and his archenemy, Khomeini took power in February. In July 1980 the Shah died of cancer and in September Saddam Hussein invaded Iran igniting a full fledge war that lasted eight years. You will also reflect on the rise and consolidation of the clerics’ power: Was this the result of a return to an Islamic past or a consequence of modernisation and itself represented a form of modernity? Through this discussion, you will get to grips with some of the major concepts in Islam, including the formation of Islam, the relationship between religion and politics, differences between Shi’a and Sunnites, and the concepts of spiritual and political authority. 71
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • The position of the Shiite ulama in Iran in twentieth century • The Shah and Khomeini • The authority of Shiite Jurisconsults (vali-‐e Faqih) • Shari’ati and a new reading of Islam (Modern Islam, Political Islam or Islamism) • Ayatollah Khomeini, before and after 1979 • After Khomeini (1989 to today) • Ayatollah Khamenei and the military • The clerical power and anti-‐Americanism Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘If pilgrimage to Mecca that is one of the principles of Islamic religion [under specific circumstances] goes against the interests of the ‘Islamic Government’, the Vali-‐e Faqih (Islamic Jurisconsult) in charge of the Islamic Government can prohibit the pilgrimage to Mecca.’ This excerpt from the book of Ayatollah Khomeini, Hokumat-‐e Eslami (The Islamic Government), implies that the Islamic Government that he succeeded to establish in Iran in 1979 is more important that Islam itself. It indicates the difference between “Islam” as religion on one hand, and “Islamic State” as polity on the other. It also goes a long way towards illustrating the nature of the clerical power in Iran today. 72
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1012 – Who is Anne Frank? (Dr Jennifer Craig-‐Norton) Module Overview The Diary of Anne Frank is the most widely read non-‐fiction book in the post-‐war world. The author has become a symbol of Jewish suffering during (what we now term) the Holocaust and a figure emblematic of all victims of the Second World War. Indeed, she might be described as an iconic figure, her name invoked across the world in campaigns promoting anti-‐racism and human rights. This course will introduce you to the life of Anne Frank and to her writing and legacy. It will place her singular experience in the wider context of a history of the Holocaust as a whole and introduce you to broad themes of recent Holocaust historiography and the wider significance this subject has in the study of history and other disciplines. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Anne Frank as Refugee • Anne Frank in Hiding • The History of the Diary • Anne Frank beyond the Secret Annexe • Children’s Experience of the Holocaust • The Holocaust as a Gender Study • Writing and the Holocaust • The Americanisation of Anne Frank • Anne Frank as Icon 73
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.’ Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl Written towards the end of Anne Frank’s two years in hiding with her family and others in an attic in Amsterdam, this quote has become the iconic representation of Anne Frank. Despite later being betrayed, arrested, deported to a death camp and succumbing to disease and starvation, Anne Frank’s essence and legacy has been summed up by this quote, the interrogation of which is at the heart of this module. 74
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1125 – When an Empire Falls: Culture and the British Empire, 1914-‐1960 (Dr Chris Prior) Module Overview If the story of the nineteenth century was the expansion and consolidation of Britain’s global status, the story of the twentieth century was of challenges to this status that Britain found it increasingly difficult to contain and manage. The development of more popular forms of anti-‐colonial nationalism, the effects of two World Wars, and the rise of other global powers, most notably the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945, contributed to the fragmentation and eventual dismantlement of the empire. How did British society respond to this change in status? In this module, you will use a wide variety of primary sources, including newspapers, novels, and films to assess what Britons thought about the world in which they lived and the challenges they faced. Did Britons respond by facing up to such challenges, or by failing to do so? How much did Britons invest in the idea of the Commonwealth? How did immigration from the colonies affect ideas about Britishness? Looking at the period from the apex of empire to its demise, this module will look at a rapidly changing cultural environment and the impact that the fall of the largest empire the world had seen had upon British ideas about gender, race, and much more. 75
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Indian nationalism and independence • The Second World War • The emergence of the Commonwealth • Immigration Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to, Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one, But Englishmen detest a siesta, In the Philippines there are lovely screens, to protect you from the glare, In the Malay states there are hats like plates, which the Britishers won't wear, At twelve noon the natives swoon, and no further work is done -‐ But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun…' Extract from Noel Coward, Mad dogs and Englishmen (1932) Coward’s popular song of the early 1930s affectionately pokes fun at the overseas colonial figure. This is no rejection or critique of imperialism of the sort that figures such as George Orwell were starting to develop between the wars. Instead, Cowell embodied a growing tendency to paint British success as the product of idiosyncrasy or eccentricity, rather than the Christian respectability and upright masculinity felt at the heart of empire for much of the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The way empire was discussed in Britain shifted a great deal between the First World War and its dissolution after the Second World War, and this source captures some of the flexibility as British commentators tried to both embody or shape domestic social attitudes and reflect events in the empire at large. 76
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1076 – God’s Own Land: Exploring Pakistan’s Origins and History (Professor Ian Talbot) Module Overview After 9/11, Pakistan emerged as a western ally in the ‘war on terror'. It was also seen as a training ground for attacks on the West following the London bombings known as 7/7. The discovery that Osama bin Laden had been hiding for years in a building adjacent to Pakistan's main military academy caused an international furore. Many of the developments in Pakistan, such as the presence of militant Islamic groups which raise doubts about the country's stability, can only be understood in terms of the historical legacies from the colonial era. Yet Pakistan's origins and inheritances are shrouded in historical controversy. This module examines Pakistan's evolution and its search for domestic and regional stability. 77
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • The conflicting understandings of the foundation vision of its creator Muhammad Ali Jinnah • An examination of the failure to achieve a consolidated democracy in the post-‐ independence period • The role of Islam in Pakistan’s politics will be assessed • The rise of Islamic militancy will be explored • The extent to which Pakistan is a ‘failed’ or ‘terrorist’ state will be debated. • The conflicting understandings of the genesis of the Kashmir dispute will be assessed along with its role in the troubled Indo-‐Pakistan relationship since 1947 Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are in fact different and distinct social orders and it is a dream that Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Presidential Address to the All-‐India Muslim League, Lahore 22 March 1940 In this speech, Jinnah articulated the two nation theory which underpinned the demand for a separate Muslim homeland in India. The following day the Lahore Resolution was passed which committed the Muslim League to the Pakistan demand. In just over seven years, the goal of Pakistan was realized, transforming the history of the Indian subcontinent. 78
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1087 – Papal Power in Medieval Europe: Crusades, Heresy and Clashes with Kings (Professor Peter Clarke) Module Overview We are all aware of the power of the EU in modern Britain and the rest of Europe, but the idea of an international body making laws, decisions and interventions in national politics is nothing new. In the later middle ages, the Church and, above all, the papacy claimed and tried to exercise power in worldly affairs on spiritual grounds: Pope Innocent III was one of the most interventionist medieval popes and did more than any other to develop ideas to justify such interventions. The module will explore not only his political ideas and actions, but also his reputation as a pastoral pope, comparable in some ways to the charismatic Pope Francis in seeking to reconnect the Catholic Church with the people. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Introduction: Background and contexts • Innocent III's Ideas of Church and ‘State' • Innocent III, Politics and Power: - Papacy and Empire - Italy: the Papal State; the Communes; the Kingdom of Sicily - Kingdoms: England and France • Innocent III and Religious Authority: - The Crusades - Heresy and the Inquisition - Pastoral Care and the Friars • Papal Law and Justice • Conclusion: the Legacy of Innocent III 79
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘. . . To me is said in the person of the prophet, \"I have set thee over nations and over kingdoms, to root up and pull down, and to waste and to destroy, and to build and to plant\" (Jeremiah 1:10). To me is also said in the person of the apostle, \"I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth it shall be bound in heaven\" (Matthew 16:19) . . . thus the others were called to a part of the care but Peter alone assumed the plenitude of power. You see then who is this servant set over the household, truly the vicar of Jesus Christ, successor of Peter … set between God and man, lower than God but higher than man, who judges all and is judged by no one . . .’ Innocent III’s Sermon on his Consecration as Pope (22 February 1198) The rise of UKIP is a reaction to the European Union’s increasing involvement in our national affairs. The idea that Britain has long been separate from Europe dies hard, but in the Middle Ages another international institution influenced life across Western Europe in more ways than the EU: the Western Church and the papacy at its head. Pope Innocent III was one of the most important popes in this period and his interventions in national politics were unprecedented: he sought to decide who ruled Germany; he became overlord of King John’s England; and clashed with various local rulers. His laws as pope also affected daily life, notably on marriage. His sermon above preached when he became pope shows that he had a clear vision of papal power from the outset: the pope was God’s representative on earth, the ‘vicar’ (deputy) of Christ, and all inhabitants of western Christendom were accountable to him but he was accountable only to God. 80
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1119 – The Long Summer? Edwardian Britain 1901-‐1914 (Dr Eve Colpus) Module Overview Edward VII's accession to the throne in 1901 began a transformative moment in British history, when Britain was arguably still the greatest world power and the terrible destruction of the First World War was still to come. Imperial pageantry, the Titanic hitting an iceberg, the elderly queuing for their old-‐age pensions are defining images of Britain between 1901 and 1914. So too are suffragettes fire-‐bombing politicians' houses and art nouveau (and modernist art). But what defined the Edwardian era? A legacy of Victorian confidence? Authentic ambitions for modernity? Long summers or deep-‐seated conflict? In this module you will examine Edwardian Britain from a range of vantage points that take in the political, social, cultural, economic and technological developments of these years. And you will consider how the Edwardian period has been commemorated and re-‐imagined since 1914. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Introduction: locating the Edwardians • Edward VII and the Edwardians • The Franco-‐British Exhibition: imperialism or transnationalism? • Class and Poverty • The Liberal Party and New Liberalism • The Strange Death of Liberal England? • The Women’s Movement in Edwardian Britain • Art and Aesthetic Cultures • Edwardians in Film 81
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 50 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 50 Sample Source Still from Electric Tramlines from Forster Square, Bradford (dir. Mitchell and Kenyon, 1902) Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon began producing films in 1897. Documenting scenes of work and social life largely in the north of England and Scotland, as well as fiction films, their collection of silent films went forgotten until 1994 when it was rediscovered. Electric Tramlines from Forster Square, Bradford (1902) is an example of a ‘local film’ produced by Mitchell and Kenyon which captured everyday scenes of Edwardian life in Bradford, Yorkshire. Such films offer a vantage point into the social history of the Edwardian period. They also present a critical challenge to historians to make sense of the coincidence of processes of social, cultural and technological modernization and the vibrancy of older traditions in this period. For example, many of Mitchell and Kenyon’s films show the co-‐existence in Edwardian towns and cities of older forms of horse-‐drawn transport alongside the new automobiles. Film was a new part of the cultural and aesthetic imagination of the Edwardian period, moving from an entertainment shown in music halls, fairgrounds and local spaces in the early period to the dedicated picture palaces that had popularized in urban centres by 1914. 82
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1136 – Siena to Southampton: Medieval Towns and Cities (Professor Chris Woolgar) Module Overview In this module you will examine ways in which historians have interpreted the renewal and flowering of urban life across Europe in the period 1000 to 1500. Based round a series of in-‐depth case studies – one of which will feature Southampton’s impressive remains, to be explored in the documentary record and on foot ‒ you will focus on a series of key debates: about the role of the economy in the development of urban life; the communal interests of towns, legal privilege and urban self-‐government; the domination of some towns and cities by powerful lords, and the resulting conflicts; and towns as centres for consumption, for specialist trades, supported by guilds and craft corporations. If towns and cities were privileged communities of citizens, conspicuous for their ‘bourgeois’ culture, you will consider how historians have exposed their darker side, as concentrations of poverty, crowded, and sometimes violent, with poor sanitation ‒ the Church’s teaching and mission developed a special appeal in these locations. Your analyses will be supported by urban chronicles, the records of trade and town government, town charters and the archives of merchants, guilds and the Church, topography and standing remains, as well as the depictions which have made the walled city so familiar to us in medieval art. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Exchange, commerce, society and population • Medieval Southampton • Towns and power: government, authority and privilege • Capital cities • Crafts, trades and guilds • The Church and urban culture • The urban poor • Townscapes, buildings and defences 83
• Ports, coastal and overseas trade • Planned towns of the Middle Ages Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source …‘We order that no one throw or cause to be thrown into the piazza of the commune of Bologna or in the crossroads at the Porta Ravennate, any stinking or dead animals or rotten fish or shellfish or any filthy or stinking thing or foodscraps, sweepings, dung or prison filth. Item, that no butcher, or anyone else, is to slaughter … any animal within four houses of the piazza, nor to pour onto it the blood or intestines of any animal … And whoever contravenes any of the above … is to be fined 40s for each occasion …’ The statutes of Bologna of 1288, translation from T. Dean (ed.), The towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages (Manchester, 2000), p. 50. Towns and cities across late medieval Europe had problems in common: large numbers of people in close proximity; the food supply; the maintenance of order; managing the market; control of building and public health. Cities like Bologna had grown rapidly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries: urbanisation on a large scale was a special feature of north Italian life, and quite unlike anything outside London in the British Isles. The citizens of Bologna had an immense sense of pride in their city: the question of cleanliness, especially in the main city square, the piazza and its immediate surroundings, was crucial in maintaining the city’s status at the point it needed to be seen at its most impressive, as well as in ensuring a salubrious environment for the citizens. The crossroads at the Porta Ravennate was the main market centre from the eleventh century, pinpointing the importance of exchange between town and country in urban growth. 84
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1146 – Joan of Arc: History Behind the Myth (Dr Rémy Ambühl) Module Overview Joan of Arc is probably the most well-‐known medieval woman. But how can we explain that a 'peasant girl' who was probably still a teenager at the time of her death has had such a great and enduring impact in history? This module looks behind the scenes. It is mainly but not essentially focused on the fifteenth century when she lived her short life (c. 1412-‐1431), a time of deep trouble and divisions within the kingdom of France. Was she the saviour of the French ‘nation’ in some of the darkest years of its history? Indicative List of Seminar Topics • The early years of Joan of Arc: Civil War in France • The Treaty of Troyes (1420) and the Dual Monarchy • A Medieval Woman’s World: Education, Standing & Occupation • Religion and Devotion • Charles VII, Joan of Arc and the Prophecy • Joan of Arc at War • The Trial of Joan of Arc (1431) • The Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc (1456) • Joan v/s Marianne: Disputed symbol of the French nation (19th/20th c.) • Joan of Arc, Nationhood and Nationalism 85
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘Asked about which she preferred, either her standard or the sword, she answered that she liked her standard forty times as much as her sword.’ How remarkable this short extract is! It is taken from the official record of the trial of Joan of Arc, in 1431. She was then a prisoner of the English, who had delivered her to the justice of the church. This trial was deeply political: the English together with her judge, who had fully embraced their cause, wanted to remove the threat she represented to their regime in France. But this political motive was hidden, for the competence of a church court was limited to the matter of faith and heresy. Joan of Arc, who was barely nineteen year old at the time of her trial, faced numerous interrogation sessions by experienced clergymen. Did she prefer her banner or her sword? The question was not innocent. A woman who took up arms and made war was transgressing the natural order as willed by God. Joan had previously acknowledged that she had a sword. But this marked preference for her banner somehow exonerated her. More important, Joan’s banner on which the names ‘Jesus’ and ‘Maria’ were sewn was devoted to God. In celebrating it in such a striking manner, Joan asserted the authority and primacy of her divine mission on earth. She avowed that she acted on behalf and at the behest of God. 86
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1153 – Alexander the Great and his Legacy (Dr Annelies Cazemier) Module Overview In this module, you will explore the evidence for the life and achievements of King Alexander III (‘the Great’), of Macedon (356-‐323 BCE). Throughout the course, the module will focus on the challenges of the surviving ancient sources (textual and material) for reconstructing the realities of Alexander’s world, his actions and intentions, and the wide-‐ranging debates and differences of interpretation that they have generated. You will learn to identify the varied agendas in ancient source material and in the scholarship surrounding its interpretation. This module will explore the historical context in which Alexander came to power in the kingdom of Macedon and the wider Greek world. It will further explore what can be known of Alexander’s early development and the ideologies and cultural factors that shaped his outlook and early policies. The major part of the module focuses on Alexander’s campaigns, his quest for the ‘liberation’ of the Greeks of Asia Minor and the conquest of the Persian Empire. Setting out in 334 BCE, with an army of c. 43,000 infantry and 5,500 cavalry of Macedonians and Greeks, Alexander led the ‘most formidable array ever to leave Greek soil’; by the time of his death in 323, he had conquered almost the whole of the known world of his time. In the context of his campaigns, particular attention will be given to Alexander’s actions – and the reception of Alexander by local peoples -‐ in Egypt and Asia, and the development of his self-‐understanding as an absolute ruler and divine king. The module will then explore the consequences of Alexander’s early death in Babylon, and the creation of the Hellenistic kingdoms under dynasties founded by his Macedonian generals, with particular focus on the Ptolemies (in Egypt) and the Seleucids (in Asia). How did these Greek-‐speaking, Macedonian elites transform these worlds of Alexander’s Empire, and vice versa? The final part of the module focuses on the reception of Alexander’s life and legacy from antiquity to the contemporary world. 87
% Contribution to Final Mark 20 Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Introduction: Sources and Approaches • Alexander’s Early Life and Fourth-‐Century Macedon • Alexander as King and the Campaign against Persia • Alexander’s Conquest: Battles and Events • Alexander’s Empire: Ruling the World • Local Contexts from Egypt to India • Alexander’s Death and his Successors • Images of Alexander through the Ages • Alexander between Myth and History Assessment Assessment Method 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘How I should like to come to life again for a little while after my death to discover how people read these present events by that time; at present they have good enough reason to praise and favour it; that is their way of angling for a share of my favour.’ Attributed to Alexander the Great, from Lucian of Samosata, How to Write History, 2nd century AD. Questions of how to interpret the life and legacy of Alexander the Great have been live since antiquity; and, if we trust this anecdote from Lucian, they began with Alexander himself. Would the histories of the future preserve nothing but distorted images created by flatterers? There are in fact both positive and negative interpretations of Alexander’s life and achievements in ancient sources as well as modern historical accounts. Different images of Alexander emerge. It is relevant to keep in mind who wrote when and with what aim. Your chance to make up your own mind about the great conqueror! 88
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1171 – Reagan’s America: Capitalism and Cold War (Dr Jonathan Hunt) Module Overview This module will be extensively based upon discussion of primary sources to encourage and develop your skills of critical analysis of source material and contemporary affairs. You will reflect upon the decade as a useful yet problematic unit of historical analysis in addition to the strengths and weaknesses of studying American and world history as entwined narratives. It is tempting to look at the 1980s as the antechamber to the present; however, what do we learn and what do we miss by interpreting the past as the direct path to now? The 1980s were the near past, presenting real challenges to historians, notably the vested interests of those involved, the political biases of those who chronicled it, and the spotty nature of available primary sources. There is a wide range of scholarly opinion, for example, between those who uncritically support and those who consistently criticise Reagan’s presidency, with supporting evidence and necessary context too often ignored when the battle lines are drawn. Despite these challenges, the rich history behind these events makes vital the careful analysis that historians bring to bear. In this module, you will question how the past is constructed through the analysis of original sources, to assess the validity of competing narratives, and to form your own conclusions based upon evidence, context, scrutiny, and reflection. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Cold War détente • Neo-‐conservatism and neoliberalism • The American culture wars • The information revolution • The AIDS epidemic • The information revolution • The War on Drugs and the carceral state • The end of the Cold War 89
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we've had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-‐rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price. Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, 20 January 1981 After his victory over Jimmy Carter in the 1980 contest, President Ronald Reagan delivered his first inaugural address from the U.S. Capitol’s western front (to symbolize his ties to California) before crowds on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. His vision painted a strong contrast with the liberal consensus prevailing since Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised a “New Deal” to Americans beset by the Great Depression. Reagan maintained government was the problem rather than the solution to the challenges of 1981: economic headwinds generated by a stagnant labour market and rampant inflation; oil shortages; a crisis in Iran, where forces aligned with Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shi’a theocracy held 52 Americans hostage; and bitter disputes about tax rates, abortion, race, gender, and America’s role in the world after Vietnam; and a loss of faith in political institutions after Watergate. In office, Reagan reoriented American domestic and foreign policy in a bid to return the country to a mythical past. He and his allies would slash taxes, roll back regulations, toughen drug laws and criminal statutes, affirm the place of religion in American life, and augment the U.S. military as the country squared off around the world against its communist nemesis, the Soviet Union, once more. For liberals, Reagan reversed progressive efforts to redress injustices and enforce equality through governmental and legal action. For conservatives, he became an icon for reclaiming the pre-‐eminence of the individual, the private sector, and personal faith in American law and politics. 90
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1174 – The First Crusade (Nicholas Kingwell) 14th century manuscript depiction of the battle of Antioch in 1098 Module Overview How are modern day relations between Islam and the West to be explained and why does the term ‘crusade' carry such emotive resonance for Muslims? To understand these things we have to go back to the beginnings of the crusade movement in 1095 with the appeal of Pope Urban II to Western Christians to take up arms and liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control. What led tens of thousands of people to respond to this appeal and leave their homes to undertake such a hazardous enterprise? The module considers this and also explores the experiences and reactions of those who encountered the First Crusade including Jews, Greeks and Muslims using the testimonies produced at the time, including chronicles, letters, charters and poems. 91
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Pope Urban II’s call for Catholic Europe to take up arms to liberate the Holy City of Jerusalem • The origins of the Crusade and the motives of the participants • The capture of Jerusalem • Study of contemporary chronicles, letters and charters, including Muslim and Jewish sources • The composition of the crusading army • The military and logistical problems faced by the crusaders • The impact of the crusade from the perspective of those most impacted, notably Muslims, Jews and Eastern Christians • Analysis of the difficulty faced by the crusaders in maintaining a Western presence in the East Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source “When Pope Urban [II] had said those these and very many similar things in his urbane discourse, he so influenced to one purpose the desires of all who were present, that they cried out, ‘God wills it, God wills it!’” From The Jerusalem History by Robert of Rheims In his eye-‐witness account of the spell-‐binding speech delivered by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, Robert records the frenzied reaction of the audience of knights and clerics to the pope’s exhortation to relieve their eastern Christian brothers from their alleged sufferings at the hands of Muslims, and to fight to liberate Jerusalem for Christianity. His words set Christendom alight and initiated the expedition that we know today as the First Crusade which resulted in the capture of Jerusalem four years later. Urban’s appeal to fight for Christ was to have long lasting consequences, for it sparked not only the medieval period’s preoccupation with crusading, but it was to have profound and long lasting effects on relations between the West and Islam which are still being played out today. 92
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1175 – Castles: Military Technology and Social Change from the Middle Ages to the Modern (Dr Nick Karn) Module Overview The castle was one of the most characteristic creations and symbols of the middle ages. They were advanced military technology which supported a range of functions; they dominated populations and secured conquests; they were garrisons, centres of government and elite residences, among other functions. Within this module, you will examine how the castle developed in terms of functions and uses. Changing military technology formed perhaps the largest single influence on the development of the castle, and the module will include consideration of the development of siege technology, and especially of the evolution of artillery. Social change also influenced the development of the castle, for castles depended on the predominance of an aristocratic class itself subject to change. Finally, you will look at the end of the castle as a serious military asset, and how some of its functions and values survived even that. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • The origin of the castle, or, why were there no castles in the early middle ages? • Castles and feudal society: functions and form • The spread of castles around Europe • Castles, innovation and the Crusades • Edward I of England and the castles of the conquest of Wales • Castles and technology: the origins of artillery and changing castle design • Castles and aristocratic culture in the later middle ages • Henry VIII and the defence of the nation • Elizabethan and Stuart castles: changing functions • The end of the castle? Military obsolescence and changing social norms • Castles and the Gothic imagination • Revision and overview 93
% Contribution to Final Mark 20 Assessment Assessment Method 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘And without delay, setting up engines most skilfully contrived around the castle, and posting an encircling ring of archers in very dense formation, he began to harass the besieged most grievously. On the one hand stones or other missiles launched from the engines were falling and battering them everywhere, on the other a most fearful hail of arrows, flying around before their eyes, was causing them extreme affliction; sometimes javelins flung from a distance, or masses of any sort hurled in by hand, were tormenting them, sometimes sturdy warriors, gallantly climbing the steep and lofty rampart, met them in most bitter conflict with nothing but the palisade to keep the two sides apart. In was in fact like this that the king’s men harassed the besieged by daily onslaughts; they, on their side, defended themselves manfully without giving way until those who were chief in command, without the knowledge of the others, sent secretly to the king and made an agreement conceding his demand for the surrender of the castle.’ The siege and capture of Faringdon Castle (Berkshire) in 1144 from the anonymous Gesta Stephani, translated by K. R. Potter and R. H. C. Davis (second edition, Oxford: OUP, 1976), p. 181 A castle siege could be violent and destructive, and might involve some of the most advanced military hardware of the day—giant catapults and slings, and later cannons—so that sieges could make a great impression on contemporaries and observers. The great engines of war could catch the eye, but were not the whole story of castles and sieges. Very few castles were ever captured through direct assaults that smashed walls and broke stone. Most sieges were won through bringing pressure to bear on the morale and attitudes of the garrison, and through intimidating the occupants of a castle. The noise and bombardment of siege warfare were principally meant to affect the people rather than the walls. This siege ended in a negotiated surrender, and this was normal for sieges. Few ended in violence and massacres. There was a clear procedure about how this should be done, and how the honour and status of both sides should be protected. There were conventions about when it was acceptable for a garrison to surrender, when resistance had been sufficient that honour was satisfied. As in this case, the approval or acquiescence of senior commanders and lords was essential to the process, so that garrisons could claim that they were just obeying orders. Honour and duty to lords, and a sense of masculine endurance (note the use of ‘manfully’ above) were fundamental to medieval warfare. 94
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1173 – The First World War (Professor Neil Gregor) Module Overview The aim of this course is to examine how changing conceptions of what the study of the past should involve have affected the work of historians studying the First World War. You will analyse ways in which different historical interpretations are formed not merely through differences of opinion concerning the content and significance of the text per se, but also as a product of different methodological approaches. You will examine and analyse ways in which historical interpretations of the First World War are rooted in consideration of varied forms of textual evidence. You will demonstrate through systematic and guided study of the different types of historical literature available on the First World War, the ability to assess primary and secondary source material. Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Diplomatic origins of World War One • Its nature as a military conflict • The social history of warfare • The nature of the home front • Its impact on gender relations • Impact on the landscape • Impact in terms of memorialisation and commemoration 95
Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Essay (1,000 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source ‘We started away just after dawn from our camp and I think it was about an hour later that we encountered the enemy. They were on the opposite side of the valley and as we came over the brow of the hill they opened on us with rifle fire and shrapnel from about 900 yards. We lost three officers and about 100 men killed and wounded in that half hour. I do not want any more days like that one…Anyway we drove the Germans back and held them there for eight days. I cannot tell you all I should like to, as it would never reach you.’ Private James Mitchell of 7 Church Lane, East Grinstead, wrote a letter to his father on 17 October 1914 Many soldiers wrote letters back to loved ones and friends from ‘the front’ for the entirety of the First World War. This short extract deals with major areas that we can see appear in many such letters from soldiers: angst, the shock of life on the front and also the realization that the letter might not get some, and hence disconnect from ‘normal’ home life. This short source can make us think about many such themes, and to what extent the war led to radical and disruptive changes in daily life for an entire generation. 96
Year 1 Semester 2 – Cases and Contexts Module (15 credits) HIST1016 – Masada: History and Myth (Professor Sarah Pearce) Module Overview This course explores the fall of the Dead Sea fortress Masada (73/74 AD), the last stronghold of resistance to Roman rule in Judea, following the outbreak of revolt against Rome (66) and the fall of Jerusalem to the soldiers of the Roman emperor Vespasian (70). The memory of these events would have a deep and lasting effect on western civilisation, up to the present day. The story of Masada is told by Flavius Josephus, first a commander on the rebel side, later a prisoner of Vespasian, and, finally, under Vespasian’s patronage in Rome, historian of the Judean War (66-‐73/74) – posthumously, one of the most read historians of all time. In his lifetime, serious questions were asked about Josephus’s loyalties (“traitor or patriot”?), and his truthfulness – those questions continue to be asked by historians today as they explore Josephus’s complex identity. His account of Masada supplies a classic case study for exploring Josephus’s credibility and the politics of his history writing. As Josephus tells it, armed rebels made Masada their home in 66, men, women, and children, inspired by religious ideology: “No ruler but God”. As proof of their beliefs, the leaders of Masada chose to kill themselves and their families (960 people) rather than surrender to the Roman forces who had laid siege to the fortress. Josephus condemns the rebels of Masada for their resistance to Rome and blames their ideology for the catastrophe of the war. But in their self-‐inflicted death, he also portrays them as heroes, admired for their bravery by the Roman soldiers who found their bodies. The story raises many questions. Not least, what really happened at Masada? Following the excavation of Masada in the 1960s, the fortress has yielded a remarkable treasure-‐trove of evidence about the lives of the people who lived at Masada and the Roman siege operation, which brought their occupation to an end. For historians of the ancient world, this is a rare and precious chance to compare the history of a major event with material evidence from the site of action. Does it confirm or refute Josephus? Can the archaeology tell us about that rarest of things, the viewpoint of rebels against Roman rule? In the modern world, the rebels’ last stand at Masada became a powerful symbol of heroic resistance but also of survival: “Masada shall not fall again”. The course concludes by exploring the legacy of Masada: the use of Josephus’s history in literature, film and politics; and Masada’s place in the modern State of Israel and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 97
Indicative List of Seminar Topics • Masada: from Herod’s fortress to rebel stronghold. • Who was Josephus? The historian and his context. • The Roman Empire in crisis: 68-‐69 AD. • The making of an emperor – the rise of Vespasian and the suppression of the Judean War. • Enemies of Rome: ideology and war against Rome. • Suicide and martyrdom: ancient perspectives. • Who was at Masada, 66-‐73/74 AD? • Josephus and the archaeology of Masada. • “Masada shall not fall again”: Masada in the modern world. Assessment Assessment Method % Contribution to Final Mark 1 x Commentaries exercise (2 x 500 words) 20 1 x Essay (2,000 words) 40 1 x Exam (1 hour) 40 Sample Source A ‘Judea Capta’ coin of the Emperor Vespasian (69-‐79 AD): bronze sestertius of 71 AD The minting of ‘Judea Capta’ coins (71-‐79 AD) marked the first phase of Vespasian’s propaganda campaign, celebrating the ‘capture’ of Judea from the rebels. In 66, the emperor Nero appointed Vespasian commander of the forces to suppress revolt in Judea; by 68, Nero was dead, and in 69 Vespasian was declared emperor. Of equestrian family, Vespasian was an unlikely candidate for emperor. The victory in Judea served to emphasise his role as defender of the Roman Empire and why he and his sons should lead it. On its obverse, the coin shows a life-‐like Vespasian, marked by the effects of age (62 in 71 AD when, as the coin states, he was consul for the third time); his Latin titles declare his status as ‘Emperor’ (‘Imperator’) and ‘Father of the Nation’ (‘Pater Patriae’); his supreme power, symbolised by the laurel wreath. On the reverse, the Latin slogan ‘Judea Capta’ (‘Judea is captured’) accompanies images of a date-‐palm, symbol of Judea, flanked by male prisoner (?), hands bound, and mourning Judea, pictured as a woman; shields, helmet and spears lie on the ground. In the first decade after the fall of Jerusalem, ‘Judea Capta’ coins were issued in Rome and in Judea. This bronze sestertius was issued for Rome, where Josephus was writing his Judean War under Vespasian’s patronage. The year of issue, 71 AD, a year after the fall of Jerusalem, saw the celebration of Vespasian’s victory with a triumph in Rome; but, as Josephus’s history insists, the rebels of Masada would hold out for several more years. Judea was not completely ‘captured’. 98
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