History and Contemporary Chinese Studies BA

Now that you have gained solid Mandarin language skills, we'll push you to develop them to a more sophisticated level. Not only will you continue to improve your understanding of the language but also the cultures of the Mandarin-speaking world.

With your increased proficiency you'll be able to examine more complex texts covering themes such as leisure activities and lifestyles, personalities, love and relationships, economic developments, language learning, and social customs.

You will be asked to reflect and compare your own culture and the target culture via group discussions and debates to enhance both, your cultural awareness and intercultural competence.

This module includes: 

• topics such as careers, job application, contemporary Chinese families and marriages, gift cultures corruption and life for Chinese people today 
• vocabulary on the above 
• grammar knowledge for the level 
• language functions such as expression ideal situations, reasoning for choices and opinions 
• understanding of authentic materials on the above topics 
• productive skills for the above topics

This module will focus mainly on:

• reading skills for understanding research-relevant texts
• writing skills for presenting academic ideas and debating in such contexts
• understanding spoken Mandarin Chinese for academic contexts and about social and cultural issues
• communication in spoken Mandarin Chinese for such contexts

After assuming his role as General Secretary in 2013 Xi Jinping stated in a meeting on propaganda and ideology that the task ahead was to "tell China’s story well, and properly disseminate China’s voice." It marked the beginning of an intensified global propaganda campaign. In stark contrast, recent years have also witnessed an intensification of western media reporting upon topics that are typically considered taboo in the Chinese domestic discourse.

This module will juxtapose 'official' and 'unofficial' narratives about China. Drawing on a wide range of domestic and international media sources you will go beyond the news headlines and learn to put media reports in their historical, political, social, and cultural contexts.

You will learn how to synthesize insights gained from official Chinese media, unofficial and more independent Chinese sources as well as international media reports about China. Typically, you’ll explore foreign affairs and international relations; technology and business; cultural and creative industries, as well as social policy issues ranging from health, education to social security.

This module is an examination of the links between sexuality, intimate life, identity, politics, society, power and the state in Britain since 1900. It also examines the theoretical approaches to the study of sexuality and analyse sexuality as a category of historical analysis.

Key themes include

• free love and eugenics
• sexology, psychoanalysis and the therapeutic revolution
• birth control and sexual knowledge
• marriage and society
• male homosexuality
• the permissive society and Counter Culture
• the AIDs crisis.

Module convener: Dr Harry Cocks

Once dismissed as the “Me Decade” (Tom Wolfe), or a time when “it seemed like nothing happened” (Peter Carroll), the 1970s have enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent American historical scholarship. This module introduces students to the narratives of crisis and decline that defined the 1970s and which helped make the decade such a transformative period in American life - recasting the United States and its society, politics and culture in significant and far-reaching ways - whilst encouraging students to think critically about those narratives and their utility for subsequent processes of political, socio-economic and cultural change. We will explore developments such as the growth of identity politics and the cult of the individual, debates over American foreign policy abroad and social policy at home, the rise of populist conservatism, the market and neo-liberalism, anxieties over the city, the environment and the political system, and a broader political and cultural power shift from Rustbelt to Sunbelt, as we seek to understand why the 1970s are now regarded as the decade “that brought us modern life - for better or worse” (David Frum).

In the historiography, the 1970s and 1980s are often referred to as a ‘landslide’ (E. Hobsbawm) or a ‘time of troubles’ (A. Marwick) for the West, which, it is argued, followed upon the ‘Golden Age’ of material affluence and cultural liberalisation that characterised the post-war period. At the same time, historical scholarship is only just beginning to make inroads into a field that has been extensively documented by cultural critics, the media and the social sciences. The module will engage critically with the dominant conceptualisation of the 1970s and 1980s as crisis decades and ask about the contribution that Contemporary History can make to our understanding of the period. It focuses on the UK and W-Germany as case studies, but will also look at developments in the West more broadly, exploring economic, social and cultural change as well as continuity. It takes thematic approaches, analysing topics including:

• Détente and the second Cold War;
• the crisis of industrialism and structural economic change;
• social change and continuity, with special emphasis on the class structure;
• the disintegration of consensus politics and the rise of the New Right;
• liberalisation, new social movements and cultural politics;
• domestic terrorism, the public and the state; heritage, memory and nostalgia.

This module evaluates the ways in which ideas during the Renaissance had an impact on both long-distance exploration and interstate relations. Also, of primary importance will be situating Tudor England in a pan-European context, thereby helping students better understand the rise of this island nation to become a global superpower. Topics covered will include:

• Renaissance attitudes to human potential
• Motivations for overseas exploration and travel
• Beginnings of European imperialism
• Continuities and changes in diplomacy
• Religion and foreign policy
• Travel literature and cultural diplomacy
• Xenophobia and cosmopolitanism

This module surveys and analyses political, religious, social, cultural and military changes during the civil wars fought across the British Isles and the British Atlantic between 1639 and 1652. The major topics to be explored include:

• the causes of the civil wars
• the mobilisation of civilian communities
• the course of the civil wars
• the impact of war on individuals and communities
• religious and political change
• the growth of religious and political radicalism
• print culture and propaganda
• the changing roles of women
• the issues surrounding the public trial and execution of the king
• the abolition of the British monarchy and the House of Lords
• the ‘Celtic dimension’ of the conflict
• the Civil Wars in the British Atlantic

This module is an examination of the links between sexuality, intimate life, identity, politics, society, power and the state in Britain since 1900. It also examines the theoretical approaches to the study of sexuality and analyse sexuality as a category of historical analysis.

Key themes include

• free love and eugenics
• sexology, psychoanalysis and the therapeutic revolution
• birth control and sexual knowledge
• marriage and society
• male homosexuality
• the permissive society and Counter Culture
• the AIDs crisis.

Module convener: Dr Harry Cocks

International history is dominated by wars; historians and international relations scholars focus with an almost obsessive zeal on the causes and consequences of conflict. The intermittent periods of peace are rarely scrutinised, other than to assess the imperfections of peace treaties and thus extrapolate the seeds of future wars. This module offers a corrective to this tendency, taking as its focus the multifarious efforts that have been made since 1815 to substitute peace for war. These include diplomatic efforts (e.g. post-war conferences, legalistic mechanisms such as the UN, arms control protocols, etc.), and those advanced by non-state actors (e.g. national and transnational peace movements, anti-war protests, etc.). Taking a broad definition of the term peace , and focusing predominantly (though not exclusively) on Britain, this module revisits some of the pivotal episodes of the 19th and 20th centuries, exposing and interrogating the often complex relationship between war and peace that emerged, and thus arriving at an alternative history of the period.

In a series of weekly seminars this module takes a critical look at the historical construction and ascendance of the Empire Windrush, and the Windrush Generation, to national prominence in the UK, deconstructing the largely mythological narrative that currently persists around this symbolic historical epoch of Black arrival in Britain in 1948. Focused largely on four significant moments of invention from 1948 to the present, the aim of the module is to equip students with a much broader view of the British Empire that brings into focus a complex and long historical picture of encounter, inbound and outbound migration preceding and in this postwar moment, as well as the conflict and civil disobedience that is obscured by the somewhat quaint story of arrival captured in the Windrush narrative.

Students will interrogate and evaluate a range of primary historical sources from the archive, including a range of oral histories, as well as the historiographical debates surrounding the Windrush in order to understand how national histories are constructed and the purposes they serve. A range of digital assets and digital history skills and methodologies will be embedded across the module – giving students the opportunity to develop their own digital archive related to the historical themes of the module.

The discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard forced historians to re-evaluate Early Medieval England and ask new questions about this crucial formative stage of history. The items discovered are almost exclusively connected to warfare, yet many show evidence of very high levels of craftsmanship, reflecting the fact that this period was one characterised by brutal and relentless fighting whilst at the same time maintaining an extraordinarily rich culture.

The history of this era of conversions, conflicts and cultural renaissances is documented primarily by Bede (c. 673-735), whose career at the monastery at Wearmouth and Jarrow culminated with the production of the first synthetic history of the English (the Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Bede’s writings are complemented by copious archaeological evidence, most famously through artefacts such as the Franks Casket and Sutton Hoo Helmet, monumental stone crosses at Ruthwell and Bewcastle, and fabulous manuscripts like the Lindisfarne, and Lichfield Gospels. Students will utilise these sources, plus a wide variety of other items of textual and non-textual evidence to explore the cultures of the early English kingdoms.

The first semester will focus on the era of conversion documented in the Ecclesiastical History, and the second will consist of a detailed analysis of Bede’s wider body of work. Finally, students will critically evaluate the terminology attached to this period and familiarise themselves with recent debates about the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’.

The need to infuse the present moment with apocalyptic meaning is an important theme in the history of ideas. Concerns about the day of judgement, Antichrist, the millennium and the end of time have a significant impact upon many different individuals and societies throughout history, finding expression in literature, architecture and a wide variety of artistic media. In some cases, apocalyptic anxiety directly influenced the actions of kings, emperors, ecclesiastical leaders and religious communities. Students will uncover systems of belief about the end of history and trace the impact of such traditions upon states, societies and religious institutions.

This module involves the in-depth study of a historical subject from which you will create a 10,000 word dissertation. You will have regular meetings with your supervisor and a weekly one hour lecture to guide you through this task.

Recent dissertation topics have included:

• Richard II, William Shakespeare and the Revolution of 1399
• The Image of the Male Witch in Early Modern Iceland
• Lord Salisbury and the Mediterranean Agreements: Revisiting Anglo-German Relations, 1886-1896
• A Re-evaluation of Prince Lichnowsky's Role as the German Ambassador in London in the July 1914 Crisis
• Interwar British Fascist Movements and Race, 1922-1940
• 'No Country, No Home': The Abandonment of the South Vietnamese by the United States after the Vietnam War
• Visions of Loathing and Desire: Representations of Masculinity in Late Soviet Posters

The module looks at the history of modern Italy (19th-21 century) from a transnational framework in order to illuminate different facets of the connections between Italy and the wider world. The module makes use of the methodological innovations of a transnational approach to put emphasis on movement, interaction, connections and exchange. It examines key moments and developments in the history of modern Italy by addressing the connections and circulations (of ideas, people, and goods) that cross borders. 

What is a human? What characteristics and qualities divide human and non-human animal? What accounts for human variation? Is the orang-utan a human or an animal? Do mermaids exist? Can humans possess both sexes in one body? To what extent do parrots possess intelligence?

During the eighteenth century, these kinds of questions were at the forefront of the minds of Enlightenment philosophers, natural historians, and physicians across Europe. They also played a role in popular interest in ‘curiosities’ and ‘wonders’ that were served by freak shows and reports of the monstrous and aberrant. Although societies across the world have posed similar questions for centuries, in eighteenth-century Europe the answers were directly informed by colonial conquest. European imperial encounter with non-European peoples, animals and environments opened-up new questions and ideas about what it meant to be human and where the boundary between human and non-human lay. 

This special subject explores European-imperial debates over the meaning of ‘the human’ and the relationship between humans and their environments in the period of the Enlightenment. The focus is largely on Britain but integrates study of networks of ideas that spanned European and imperial geographies. The module is based on a series of case studies including (but not limited to): mermaids, rhinos, troglodytes, ‘wild’ children, orangutans, intersex people who were displayed as ‘hermaphrodites’, dwarves, and parrots. In many instances, these and other human and non-human spectacles of difference were enslaved, transported, exhibited in freak shows, examined by physicians, and dissected after death. As a history of the entanglement between colonialism and science, this module is as much about violence and power as it is about ideas. By exploring how ideas of the ‘human’ were constituted through colonial encounter, this module draws on studies of race and racism, gender, sexuality and disability. The aim is to consider how the reframing of the boundaries of human during this period of European imperial expansion has impacted our modern relationships to each other, as humans, to non-human animals, and to the environment. 

In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party took control of mainland China, banishing the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan, and starting a period of massive social, political and cultural upheaval. Covering the period from the communist take-over of 1949 to the start of reforms in the 1980s – but focusing primarily on the period of Chairman Mao Zedong’s rule (1949 to 1976) – this module charts the massive changes to Chinese society, politics, culture and economics that were experienced in this time. The module introduces students to the key debates about this period from a variety of perspectives (social, history, cultural history, gender history, international relations, etc) and encourages students to engage with the lively field that is now referred to as ‘PRC History’. It does this by encouraging students to work primary sources from the period, from propaganda posters to audio-visual material and accounts of life under Mao available in translation.

Weekly topics which may be covered include:

• 1The 1949 divide: What really changed with the Communist revolution?
• Land Reform: an economic or social programme?
• The emergence of China on the world stage: Korea and Bandung
• 'Holding up half the sky’: Communist policies on women
• The Anti-Rightist campaign: Communism and the intellectuals
• The Great Leap Forward: what caused the Great Famine?
• The roots of the Cultural Revolution: a political purge or a social experiment?
• How cultural was the Cultural Revolution?
• ‘Global Maoism’: a Chinese ideological export?
• Was the post-Mao turn to reform inevitable?

The module looks at the Eurasian continent in the period of the Mongol expansions, so, c.1200 to c.1300. It considers the Mongols themselves through the lens of the anonymous Secret History of the Mongols and the writings of numerous people who both encountered them or wrote about them at second hand, including:

• Rashid al-Dīn: a Jew in Mongol Central Asia
• John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck and the Papal missions to the Mongols
• Roger Bacon and Matthew Paris, English chroniclers
• Marco Polo: merchant and envoy
• Ibn Battuta: a pilgrim’s adventures
• ‘Sir John Mandeville’: an invented travel book.

Topics include:

• Mongols; Mongol warfare and conquests, court life and culture, Mongol queens, Mongol economy, law and approach to religions
• their impact on Eurasia; the four Mongol khanates and relations with peoples they conquered and neighboured, and the European, Islamic and South/South East Asian response; the Silk Roads.
• the concept of ‘races’ and ‘peoples’ in the Middle Ages and how they encountered each other.
• sources and historiography.

Typically this special subject module surveys and analyses social and cultural change in the West during the `long Sixties' from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s.

Key issues include:

• The origins and nature of changes in norms of behaviour in the 1960s such as the sexual revolution, attitudes to authority, and the role of youth in society.
• The impact of wider historical developments such as post-war economic prosperity and the Cold War (the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis took place in 1962, for instance).
• An emphasis on looking at the experiences of ordinary people while acknowledging the role of major leaders.
• The origins of a counterculture in the United States and Britain.
• The Vietnam War.
• The development of protest movements such as the civil rights campaign in the United States; the anti-nuclear movement (CND was founded in 1958); student protest movements; the anti-Vietnam War campaign.
• The movement of protest campaigns toward the use of violence, and ultimately the development of terrorist campaigns in the 1970s (Baader- Meinhof, the Weathermen, the Red Brigades).
• The `second wave' of feminism from the late 1960s.
• The representation of the decade in popular culture, both in the 1960s and in subsequent decades, and in particular the politicisation of debates about this controversial period.

This module surveys and analyses Russia’s development between the 1905 revolution and the end of the civil war in 1921.

The module focuses on key features of this period, including:

• the causes for and impact of the 1905 revolution
• Russia’s economic and industrial development
• challenges to rural life
• the development of civil society
• the impact of World War One on Russian society.

Themes include:

• the importance of social identity in revolution
• the importance of symbolism and imagery in understanding revolution
• the role of violence and the language of hatred
• the roles of individuals and key political groups within the revolutionary process.

Module convener: Dr Sarah Badcock

The first half of the module is an in-depth chronological survey of the domestic history of England from the Good Parliament of 1376 to the deposition of Richard II in 1399. We will investigate how the royal family and their friends - a colourful and sometimes scandalous group - struggled to rule the country with the aid of such government instruments as show trials, intimidation, legal advice, murder and poll-taxes.

The remaining part of the module considers England's relations with its neighbours and the impact of Lollardy on society and the Church in this period.

Students will be introduced to the role and functioning of the British in the Atlantic slave trade in the early-modern period. The module will cover aspects such as the importance of the slave trade to the British economy, the functioning of the slave trade in Africa itself and around the Atlantic, the 'West India Interest', abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and memorialisation of the trade today. Please note that this module does not deal with slavery.

This module charts the development of the British slave trade throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to its official end in 1807. Students should have some understanding of the key historiographical debates surrounding the slave trade and abolition and some of its long-term consequences, and through this to develop the intellectual and transferable skills outlined below.

This module investigates the development of politics and society in the crucial period leading up to WWI. In general, it was an era of liberal dominance in Europe s political landscape, though this can be disputed. The main focus will be the rise and fall of liberal politics across Europe in the period 1848-1914. A major theme will be the interaction between ideas and actions. Particular attention will be devoted to the intellectual foundations of European politics, the legacy of the 1848 revolutions, the drafting of constitutions, bills of rights and a suitable legal framework, the difficulty in building a liberal nation-state, the place of religion in society, the rising power of nationalism and the concrete reforms introduced throughout the period. The emphasis will be on how politics functioned in practice, within its own context, taking into account the possibilities and strictures of the time. Extensive use will be made of original source materials and comparative analysis will also be encouraged.

The purpose of this module is to encourage students to develop a detailed knowledge of primary evidence and recent historical debates in the Thirty- Years’War addressed at three levels: as a war of religion, as a clash of interests between the imperial crown and German territorial princes, and as a human catastrophe of monumental proportions. Although its drama unfolded primarily in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire, the war drew in such diverse participants as Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden and Spain. In pursuit of self-seeking political goals, they formed unlikely alliances and created obstacles to the conflict’s resolution. However, the outcome of the war was to ensure the survival of Protestantism in Central Europe as well as to provide a stable political and religious status quo that lasted into the modern age. The module discusses the Thirty Years’War by drawing on various historiographical traditions that represent the views of major international players.

The module will engage with the social and political changes that took place in 1980s Britain. It will be concerned with the following themes:

• The ideology of Thatcherism
• The relationship between social change and political change
• The political significance of Margaret Thatcher
• Margaret Thatcher’s rhetoric
• The political legacies of Thatcherism.

This module will investigate the lives and ideas of early to mid-20th century critics of British imperialism. The emphasis will be on critiques that emerged from outside the British isles, with a focus on four regions in particular: the Caribbean, East Africa, the Middle East and India. However, there will also be some investigation of the connections between anti-colonial activism in the British Isles and beyond.

More specific topics include:

• The influence of Marxist ideas on colonial critique, with a particular focus on the Caribbean, including the roles of Eric Williams in Trinidad and Cheddi and Janet Jagan in Guiana.
• The contrast between collaborative reformers, such as Eridadi Mulira, and radical revolutionaries, such as Dedan Kimathi, in Anglophone East Africa.
• Metropolitan critiques of empire with a particular emphasis on the role of activist women such as Barbara Castle and Doris Lessing.
• The significance of culture and cultural critique as an aspect of anti-colonial thinking, as explored in the writings of Mohandas Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu.
• The power politics of nationalism after independence, focusing especially on the relationship between Nasser and his critics in the Middle East.

With regard to methodology, particular priority will be accorded to primary source material, including philosophical writings, articles, campaigning pamphlets, letters, diaries and memoirs of anticolonial activists.

This module focuses on the impact of colonialism and its aftermath on North Africa, identifying how the societies from the region were affected by and how they reacted to European control and what sort of states and societies they sought to establish in the aftermath of colonialism. Emphasis will be given to political developments, but the cultural, economic and social dimensions of the period will also be examined.

The module will begin with an exploration of the theme of resistance. Here, key ideas in the colonial politics of the region will be examined, typically including topics such as nationalism, economic exploitation, conflict, and the impact of external actors.

The second theme to investigate is that of decolonisation. Two case studies will be highlighted: the Suez Crisis and the Algerian War of Independence. Key ideas to explore are British and French policy in North Africa in the post-war period, Anglo-Egyptian/ French-Algerian negotiations, the growth of Arab nationalism, nationalisation and the impact of American policy. The broader impact of Suez and the Algerian War in the West and the wider world will also be considered.

The module will conclude with a discussion of the theme of state-building and its implication for analysis of the politics of the region. The focus will be on the question of what sort of states and societies the new independent countries of North Africa sought to establish in the aftermath of colonialism.

The aim of the module is to explore key events that have shaped the colonial and post-colonial history of North Africa in the 20th century, such as the Suez Crisis, but the module will also offer an opportunity to analyse how narratives of foreign policy and international history are constructed from primary source material. It will make use of memoirs, autobiographies, diaries and government records, as well as some cultural items such as novels, poetry, films, songs, posters, newsreels and cartoons, to achieve this objective. Additionally, students will be encouraged to consider the wider historiographical debates and develop their own based on their reading of primary and secondary material. The broad aim is to offer a rich sense of the specific context in which resistance, decolonisation, and state-building took place at particular times and in particular locations in North Africa.

Module description to be confirmed.

This module is an in-depth study of the impact of the French Revolution on British politics, society and culture between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. Through an exploration of primary documents and secondary texts, students will investigate the events of the period and consider the wide range of interpretations that have been applied to these years by contemporaries and historians. Subjects for consideration include:-

• 'the revolution debate' (e.g. Burke, Paine and Wollstonecraft)
• the development of popular radical and loyalist political organisations
• the government's use of legal apparatus against radicals and publishers
• the impact of scarcity and food crises in a time of war and economic dislocation
• the emergence of a so-called 'revolutionary underground' after 1795
• the Irish rebellion of 1798 and its antecedents
• the ways in which loyalism, patriotism and nationalism were articulated during this period (e.g. Hannah More and James Gillray)

This module examines the history of travel to and within Italy in accounts written by British travellers in the period c.1780-c.1914, especially these key topics:

• methodologies necessary for analysing travel writing as historical evidence
• the nature of the 'Grand Tour', including the experiences of women travellers
• collecting and the development of notions of taste
• the changing nature of travel writing in the nineteenth century, including the Romanticisation of travel
• the appearance of middle class travellers as 'tourists'
• the 'guide book', a new genre of writing

This module surveys the dramatic cultural encounter in the nineteenth century as the world of the samurai was confronted by Western expansion and the Age of Steam. It explores the forces at work in Japan’s rapid transformation from an ‘ancien régime’ under the rule of the Shogun into a ‘modern’ imperial power. Original documents examined in class draw on the growing range of Japanese primary sources available in English translation, together with the extensive works of Victorian diplomats, newspaper correspondents and other foreign residents in the treaty ports. You will have four hours of lectures and seminars each week for this module.

This module explores religious ‘faith’ in England from c. 1215 to the beginning of the Reformation in 1534.

The English church made great efforts in this period to consolidate Christianity amongst the masses through wide-reaching programmes of instruction, regulation and devotion. However, historians disagree as to how successful the church was in its efforts.

The module investigates the relationship between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ religion and examines how the church sought to maintain its authority in matters of faith. It asks how people responded and the degree to which they fashioned their own religious practices and beliefs. It also considers the violent repression by church and crown of those deemed ‘heretics’.

It looks at the condemned teachings of the Oxford academic John Wycliffe and the significance of those who followed his ideas, known as Lollards.

Module convener: Dr Rob Lutton

In 1348 the Black Death arrived in England. By 1350 the disease had killed half of the English population. The module concentrates upon the stories of the epidemics' survivors and what they did to adapt to a world turned upside down by plague. It examines the impact of this unprecedented human disaster upon the society and culture of England between 1348 and 1520. It examines four particular groups of survivors:

• Peasants
• Merchants
• Gentry
• Women

The module explores English society through translated medieval sources. Themes include:

• Impact of the Black Death
• Religious and scientific explanations of the plague
• Changes in peasant society and how peasants lived after the plague  Merchants, their lives, businesses and shifting attitudes towards them
• Gentry society and culture in the fifteenth century and the development of an entrepreneurial ‘middling sort’
• Women’s lives and experiences in a post-plague patriarchal society The module poses a simple question: How central is the Black Death in explanations of long-term historical change and the evolution of the modern world?

By the mid-nineteenth century, Britain controlled one of the largest and most populous empires in history. This module examine some of the major events and dynamics that shaped the character of British imperialism, and the historical debates over them.

Particular attention is paid to the relationship between London, the ‘Imperial Metropolis,’ and India, South Africa, and the British colonies in the Caribbean.

The module interrogates the idea of ‘imperialism’ itself and focuses on post-colonial theory and ‘New Imperial History’ in order to critically re-appraise the operation of imperial systems and to apply an interdisciplinary perspective to their study.

Module convener: Dr Sascha Auerbach

This special subject introduces students to key themes within the medical history of colonialism, particularly examining the implications of the inequitable power relations inherent in any colonial project and how these have specifically contributed to the development of health principles and policies. The module looks at the way in which western medical theories of disease and healing shaped ideas about colonial environments, populations, bodies, and racial differences in the imaginations of colonisers. Medicine is revealed not only as a vital tool of colonial domination, but also as fundamentally limited as a successful mechanism for colonial social control. At the same time, the paradox that some western medical interventions did improve the health of many sectors of the population is addressed.

Given the wide chronological and geographical breadth of the topic, a series of 'snapshots' are offered to give a flavour of important aspects of western medical colonialism. The module principally, but not exclusively, uses historical examples within the British experience in the Americas, Africa and India. Approaches to tackling the health of unfamiliar climates, as well as the way colonial medical polices were conceived and implemented are critically discussed via case studies. Finally, the module examines some of the legacies of these attitudes in the post-colonial world.

This module examines the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), its underlying causes and legacy for present-day Spain. Commencing with the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931, students will consider the principal historical forces and conditions that gave rise to the outbreak of war in 1936 in Spain. The module is delivered through a series of student-led seminars in which students present their understanding of a specific historical event, theme or ideas through their study of primary and secondary sources, and respective historiographical debates. Thus, students will develop an in-depth understanding of the war through propaganda, myth, revolutionary ideology, anti-clerical and gendered violence, as well as, for example, the significance of Badajoz and Guernica. The conflict is also considered in the wider context of the "European Civil War"; specifically, the role of military interventions on the part of regimes in Italy, Germany, Portugal, and the Soviet Union, and the influence of non-interventions by Britain and France. 

In 1665, London suffered the worst plague epidemic since the Black Death, killing over 97,000 people. The following year, the Great Fire destroyed four-fifths of the ancient City of London within three days. This module explores the impact of these events and places them within the context of the 1660s and the city’s past and future history.

We will investigate how Londoners across the social spectrum responded to natural disasters and crises, the challenges that these presented to community values and group identities and how the spread of news reflected fears over religious difference and terrorist plots. The module also examines the changing character of the city across the period including concerns over health, the environment and the use of green space.

The modern world inherited and produced various free and unfree labour regimes—slavery, bonded labour, indentured labour, free-wage labour, child labour, ‘unskilled’ women labour. Race, caste, colonialism, and industrial capitalism shaped and continue to shape working lives, their work culture, and struggles. In this module, we will investigate the conditions of workers by exploring topics such as:

1. Enslaved labourers in the cotton plantations of America,

2. Docks workers at the Mombasa (in Africa) port,

3. Indian indentured labourers in Caribbean colonies,

4. Factory workers (male, female, children) in British and Indian factories,

5. Bonded caste labourers (agrarian slavery) in Indian fields.

The module touches upon key themes, such as free and coerced labour, night-time and sleep of workers, the social reproduction of labour, feminization of the workspace, the emergence of industrial time, etc.

The module aims to provide students with an understanding and critical analysis of how race, caste, colonialism, and capitalism shaped the lives of working people in the last 300 years. Conceptually, it touches on themes such as industrial time, forced and waged labour, child and women labour, sleep and the night-time of workers. In terms of learning resources, the module focusses on archival primary sources, documentaries, and the cutting-edge research on global labour history.

This is a discipline-bridging cross-campus module, involving colleagues from across the School of Humanities.

The Silk Road will be presented as a range of archaeological, historical and scientific themes. Broad cultural themes will be balanced with the presentation of specific case studies, such as:

• The definitions of the Silk Roads
• Byzantine, Islamic and later medieval Silk Roads
• Luxury production
• Trade and exchange from the Roman and later periods
• Ming Dynasty links with the West

Scientific techniques for the analysis of materials, and their role in the interpretation of trade and exchange along the Silk Roads, will also be considered. This could be between, for example, China, central Asia, Scandinavia and the Middle East.

This module is worth 20 credits.