UNIT SPECIFICATION
Unit title
Level
Interpreting History
Level 5
Is this a common unit?
Credit
value
20 (10 ECTS)
No
Expected contact
hours for the unit
40 hours
Pre and co-requisites
None.
Aims
This unit aims to broaden and deepen themes raised in the first year related to historiography and methodology
and will extend students’ critical awareness of the discipline and analytical skills. Historical interpretation can be
complex, ambiguous and often conflicted and the unit will explore a range of historical viewpoints and
interpretations. Students will be introduced to the diversity of specialism’s within the discipline such as family
history, women’s history, gender history, black history, ‘history from below’ and ways of presenting that
interpretation. The unit sets out to prepare students for their final year Dissertation by allowing deeper historical
enquiry and independent research.
Intended learning outcomes
Having completed this unit the student is expected to:
1. have a critical understanding of the complexity and ambiguity of historical viewpoints and
interpretations;
2. have a critical understanding of different approaches and specialisms within the study of history;
3. have and ability to synthesise and present ideas, theories, concepts and research related to the
study
of history;
4. demonstrate study and research and the ability to develop and construct an argument.
Learning and teaching methods
The unit will be delivered through lectures and seminars and supported through weekly tutorials. Students will
be expected to participate in weekly debates on the subject area, which will form part of the formative
assessment. Forty hours of contact time will be provided but students will be expected to undertake a large
proportion of self-managed learning and research. This will help to prepare students for the dissertation at level
6.
Assessment
Formative assessment/feedback
Formative assessment will be provided on students’ participation during weekly debates.
Summative assessment
ILOs 1 & 3 will be assessed by 50% coursework and
ILOs 2 & 4 will be assessed by 50% exam.
Indicative unit content
Historical interpretations;
Class and gender;
Race and ethnicity;
Indicative assessment
The coursework will typically consist of two pieces:
one larger essay that explores and analyses
historical interpretation 1,500 words (30%) and a
contextual book review of 1,000 words (20%). The
two and a half hour exam (50%) will consist of essay
writing.
Power, ideology and discourse;
Wealth and poverty;
Labour;
History from below:
Kinship and family;
Locality and community;
Research methods/ methodology;
Developing your research proposal.
Indicative learning resources
Beaven, B., 2005. Leisure, Citizenship and Working Class Men in Britain 1850–1945. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Beckett, J., 2007. Writing Local History. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Benson, J., 2003. The Working Class in Britain 1850–1939. London. I.B. Tauris.
Bourke, J., 1994. Working-Class Cultures in Britain 1890–1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity. London:
Routledge.
Cannadine, D., 1990.The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. New Haven: Yale
Cannadine, D., 2000. Class in Britain. New Haven: Yale.
Gilroy, P., 1991. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: the Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. 2nd ed.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Phythian, C., (ed.), 1993. Societies, Cultures and Kinship, 1580–1850: Cultural Provinces in English Local
History. Leicester: Leicester University
Pryce, W.T.R., 1994. From Family History to Community History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press in
association with The Open University.
Samuel, R., 1981. People’s History and Socialist Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Unit number
FMC-IH-1
Version number
1