University of Bristol, History BA: Lecture Response Unit, Final Year, 2014/15, TB1
The descriptions below are intended to act as a brief and user-friendly guide to the
optional units we are offering in 2014/15. Please note that we do not guarantee that all the
listed units will run. A unit may be withdrawn, for instance, if there is insufficient demand for
it. If you have any queries regarding the information below, we would strongly recommend
that you seek advice from your Personal Tutor.
HIST30019 Communist Worlds
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr Thomas Beaumont
From the Russian revolution in 1917 to the collapse of communist regimes after 1989,
communism represented one of the most significant and defining ideologies of the twentieth
century. Yet, what did it mean to be a communist? Is it fair to speak of a single, monolithic
and totalitarian ‘Communism’ or were communist identities multiple and adaptable to
different contexts and personal experiences? Is an analysis of communism as a criminal
ideology akin to Nazism sufficient to understand why the communist ‘faith’ held such appeal
for so many men and women across the twentieth century? These are just some of the
possible questions students will be engaging with in the course of this unit, as communist
politics, society and culture are explored in a variety of contexts in Eastern and Western
Europe across the period of its existence.
HIST30030 Hard Labour? The History of Work
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Josie McLellan
Why do men do less washing-up? Why do women get paid less? Is being a housewife a
proper job? This unit will explore the history of work in the twentieth century, paying
particular attention to the distribution of work between men and women. We will consider
formal employment, unpaid work, volunteering, domestic work and reproductive labour.
Major themes to be covered include how the political, emotional, and economic value of
work has been measured, and how this has been affected by developments in politics, the
economy, policy, civil society, the family and the workplace. Sources for this study include
datasets, eyewitness accounts and memoirs, newspapers and other media.
HIST39011 Modern Latin American Revolutions
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr Fernando Cervantes
Modern Latin America has been unduly neglected by historians since the fall of the Berlin
wall and the consequent decline in interest in Revolutions and peasant studies, all of which
had made the region highly popular in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. This unit centres on a
reassessment of the study of Revolutions and the role they have played in the development of
modern American nations. It will study four major Latin American revolutions in
chronological order: the Mexican (1910), the Bolivian (1952), the Cuban (1959) and the
Nicaraguan (1979), each time aiming to highlight common problems that are central to our
understanding of modern Latin America. Among these are issues of nation building, land
reform, militarism, democracy, the church and liberation theology, neo-liberalism, and the
1
University of Bristol, History BA: Lecture Response Unit, Final Year, 2014/15, TB1
return of left-wing populism. Students will also be encouraged to come up with their own
suggestions for independent study.
HIST30012 The Development of the Modern Mass Media: Disciplining Democracy
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr Simon Potter
This unit explores the development of the modern mass media from the mid-nineteenth to the
mid-twentieth centuries, focusing on Britain, but also glancing at the wider English-speaking
world. During this period, the modern mass media took on many of the features so familiar to
us today: production on an industrial scale; close links with the worlds of advertising on the
one hand, and politics on the other; the targeting of particular markets, including women as a
discrete group of consumers; a fascination with sex, violence and scandal; and a tendency to
claim to serve the best interests of democracy. The unit aims to subject these developments to
critical scrutiny, and also to examine the concepts that historians have worked with when
thinking about the role of the mass media in society, such as ‘hegemony’ and the idea of a
‘public sphere’. The unit will allow students to work with on-line digital newspaper archives
to pursue their own research. We will look at the history of newspapers, broadcasting and the
cinema, examining how media enterprises and authorities such as The Times and the BBC
have established themselves as ‘national’ institutions, and how other, perhaps more
liberating, influences have struggled to find a voice.
HIST30027 Food: A Global History
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Robert Skinner
We are what we eat. As such, the history of what we eat – and how we eat – touches on the
basic fundamentals of the human condition. Food history is a history of everyday life in its
essence – but it is also a history of the complex interactions between human biologies,
cultures and politics. What we eat today is shaped by histories of science and technology
(why does a fridge hum?), imperialism, globalization and economic development. But it is
also a story of cultural change and exchange. In this unit, we will explore the global history
of food, examining key aspects of a vibrant, complex and rapidly-developing historiography.
Topics covered will include food diffusion after Columbus, cultures and manners of eating,
industry and food for mass society, modernity and food production, and twentieth-century
food counter-cultures.
HIST30025 Death, Doctors and Disease
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Victoria Bates
This Lecture Response Unit will examine the history of medicine and health in modern
Britain. It will consider issues such as the history of infectious disease, from TB to AIDS, and
the emergence of chronic ‘diseases of modern life’. This unit will also examine particular
sub-fields of the medical profession, such as psychiatry, and will examine medicine in
different contexts, such as war and empire. It will pay attention both to the history of
2
University of Bristol, History BA: Lecture Response Unit, Final Year, 2014/15, TB1
medicine ‘from above’, including the emergence of the NHS, and to recent efforts to write
histories ‘from below’ that examine patients’ experiences and narrative of illness. Overall, in
this unit we will study a range of aspects of medicine and health to re-evaluate narratives of
‘progress’ and to question whether medical advances have been inherently beneficial for
mankind.
HIST30028 Genocide in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Joanna B. Michlic
This LRU is designed as an introduction to the study of war, nationalism and genocide in the
twentieth century and beyond. We will explore some of the most important aspects of the
relationship between the destructive capacity of war and its effects on individuals and
communities who produce, are subjected to, and must eventually come to terms with the
aftermath of mass violence. We will focus on the manner in which the warfare affects the
status of ethnic minorities; the circumstances under which ethnic scapegoating turns into
massacres and genocide; the destructive psychological effects of modern warfare but also its
ability to produce and reproduce those who take pleasure in killing; the effects of modern
warfare on the status of women and on children; the manner in which individuals remember
and tell their experience of total war; and the devastating consequences of combining modern
warfare with genocidal ideology and racial prejudice. Europe in the twentieth century will
constitute the main region of our historical investigation, but, by a way of comparison, we
will also discuss the wars and genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda Congo, and Darfur. We will
base our discussions on the readings of various sources: history writings, literary works,
investigative journalism, diaries and memoirs and on analyzing documentary films.
HIST3xxx
The Origins of the Old Regime, 1550-1750
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Noah Millstone
During the early modern era, a series of semi-feudal kingdoms on the western edge of the
Eurasia were transformed into well-financed, militarized states with global ambitions. This
Lecture Response unit addresses the problem of state formation, and equips students to ask
questions about origins and character of Europe’s anciens régimes. We will study the
emergence of centralized administrative bodies; the new sciences of ‘reason of state’,
political economy and cameralism; and the mixing of church and state that produced new
forms of collaboration, mobilization and loyalty. We will ask: what caused the emergence of
the ‘absolutist’ state? How did old regime states function? How can we understand the
relationships between religious wars, socioeconomic changes, and imperial competition?
Major themes include the practice of comparative history, social scientific accounts of state
formation, the ‘social collaboration’ model of absolutism, and the so-called ‘military-fiscal
state’. Students will learn to see the state as an historical product, and will be equipped to
pursue research questions about state formation in a variety of contexts.
3
University of Bristol, History BA: Lecture Response Unit, Final Year, 2014/15, TB1
HIST3xxx
Human Rights in History
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Emily Baughan
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. Signed by all the members
of the United Nations, it proclaimed the entitlements of all individuals irrespective of their
race, nationality, age or gender. In this unit, we trace the intellectual origins of human rights
within modern British history. In a series of thematic seminars, we ask three key questions:
did the 1948 Declaration mark an historical watershed, or was it instead the product of a long
process of evolution? What is the relationship between national citizenship and international
rights? Were human rights used to justify British imperial expansion and intervention
overseas, both in the past and the present day?
To answer these questions, we will engage with a vibrant, burgeoning literature on human
rights in modern history. This will allow us to examine the role of British liberalism,
American Independence and the French Revolution in the development of individual and
universal rights discourses; Allied diplomats as the ‘architects’ of the United Nations; the role
as human rights activists; and the extent to which imperial power was extended, or curtailed,
by United Nations and European Union Human Rights Declarations. Students will deepen
their analytical abilities through close readings of nineteenth and twentieth century rights
declarations, detecting subtle changes in the nature and form of contemporary rights.
HIST3xxx
Global Cities
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Su Lin Lewis
This course examines the historical emergence of the modern city in Asia from a global
perspective. We begin by considering port-cities as sites of commercial and cultural
exchange in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. We ask how colonial encounters shaped
the emergence of the modern city in Asia, from architecture and urban planning to
intellectual and social life. We consider the way in which urban spaces were transformed by
the influx of migrants and capital, and investigate the sites of urban sociability from literary
salons and entertainment parks to red-light districts and migrant enclaves. We question the
role of cities as incubators of nationalism, modernity, and cosmopolitanism. We look at the
effects of war and violence and the roots of urban poverty in the transition from the colonial
to the post-colonial era. We end by examining futuristic aspirations for 'World City' status in
the contemporary age. The class is taught through thematic lectures and student-led seminars
exploring case studies. The course introduces students to themes in global, urban, and social
history, while allowing students to specialise in the histories of particular cities including:
Delhi; Bombay (Mumbai); Colombo; Calcutta (Kolkota); Rangoon (Yangon); Singapore;
Batavia (Jakarta); Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City); Phnom Penh; Manila; Bangkok; Shanghai;
Hong Kong; and Tokyo.
4
University of Bristol, History BA: Lecture Response Unit, Final Year, 2014/15, TB1
HIST3xxx
Technocracy
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Daniel Haines
From economists to climate scientists, technocrats help rule our modern lives. They play key
roles in the ways that governments govern, shaping human society while claiming to be
objective and neutral. Whether in the democratic USA, the communist Soviet Union, or in
Pakistan under military dictatorship, technocrats are indispensable to the people in power.
This unit examines the use and abuse of technical expertise in politics and culture. It seeks
explanations for ways that experts have advised political leaders, and asks what happens
when experts themselves have become leaders. Topics range from dam-building in the
American West, through the Rockefeller Foundation’s anti-malaria work in Egypt during the
Second World War, to the controversial relationship between illegal drug policy and
scientific advice in contemporary Britain. It raises ethical and practical questions relevant to
today’s society: does a technical viewpoint preclude political common sense, and vice versa?
Who has the right to decide how to use scientific knowledge? What does technocracy mean
for democracy? Locating such issues in different historical and geographical contexts, this
unit asks how certain kinds of knowledge become allied with social and political power.
HIST30032 Pirates
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr. Richard Stone
In the popular imagination, historical pirates are romantic figures, with Long John Silver and
Johnny Depp setting the tone for the way pirates are conceived. The historical reality of
piracy, however, was more diverse and often more menacing, while piracy itself remains a
serious issue in the modern world. From the Dunkirkers and Barbary Corsairs who harried
shipping at the close of the Middle Ages to the Somalian Pirates of today, piracy has been a
constant of maritime life. This unit will explore piracy throughout history in all of its forms:
from the ‘robbers of the sea’, through the privateering of the Elizabethan Age, to the modern
pirates of the Indian Ocean and China Seas. We will explore a range of issues including what
drove people to piracy, how pirates organised themselves and the nature of the threat that
piracy posed or poses. Other themes will include: official responses to piracy, the
relationship between piracy and the law, popular perceptions of pirates and the varied
relationships between piracy, diplomacy, state formation and imperial growth.
HIST39009 Holocaust Landscapes
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr Andy Flack
This unit examines ‘holocaust landscapes’, historical geographies characterised by their use
as places of mass killing and the memory of loss. The unit will address an array of historical
spaces, such as the forest, ghetto, camp, sea, river, and road associated with mass killings.
Alongside the Jewish Holocaust, the unit will consider the battlefields of the First World
War, sites of Native American and Aboriginal ‘genocide’, the killing fields of Cambodia, the
Rwandan genocides and episodes of ‘ecocide’ to understand the ways in which space, place
and time become entwined in our understandings of the past. Throughout the unit, we will
examine the ways in which landscapes both affected and were affected by historical events,
5
University of Bristol, History BA: Lecture Response Unit, Final Year, 2014/15, TB1
and we will think critically about the contrasts between the physical world and the imaginary
landscapes of grief, hatred, and revenge that overlaid them. Methodologically we will explore
the intersections between history and geography, and the ways in which we might understand
the spaces and places of our past.
HIST39012 Constructing the ‘Other’ in Western Europe c. 1000 - 1400
LECTURE RESPONSE UNIT: FINAL YEAR (TB1)
Dr Ian Wei
Historians working in different fields of medieval Western European history have noted a
tendency for medieval people to construct an ‘other’ against which to establish their own
identity. We will bring together these various fields to pose fundamental questions about the
nature of medieval society and to test various explanatory models.
Were some groups defined and persecuted in order to enhance the power of rulers and their
bureaucrats? Was there a distinctive medieval concern about purity and taboo? How much
can be explained by medieval beliefs about sin and evil? Were some images of the ‘other’
constructed in attempts to understand the unknown? Are historians misled by a rhetoric of
abuse which they over-interpret? Was ‘otherness’ merely a construction of learned clerics
which most people ignored?
Topics will include: heretics, Jews, Moslems, angels, devils, ghosts, concepts of race, class
conflict, gender difference, sexual deviance, animals, monsters, travel, criminals and lepers.
6
University of Bristol, History BA: Special Subject, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
The descriptions below are intended to act as a brief and user-friendly guide to the
optional units we are offering in 2014/15. Please note that we do not guarantee that all the
listed units will run. A unit may be withdrawn, for instance, if there is insufficient demand for
it. If you have any queries regarding the information below, we would strongly recommend
that you seek advice from your Personal Tutor.
HIST37001 The Intellectual Culture of the Twelfth Century
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Ian Wei
The twelfth century has long been recognized as a period of dramatic change in Western
Europe. Economic, social, political, religious, cultural and intellectual historians have all
deployed the most dramatic terms favoured by their generation to express the significance of
this change: renaissance, reformation, discourse, etc. We will focus on the culture of learning
in the twelfth century and its role in wider social change.
The first part will concern the contexts of learning and intellectual methods: the culture of
competition in the new schools, the study of logic and philosophy in the schools, ways of
knowing God in schools and monasteries, techniques of textual interpretation, science and
cosmology. The second part will concern how scholars viewed and interacted with the rest of
society: architecture, courtly culture and sexuality, pastoral care, social satire, law, the role of
intellectuals in politics. We will conclude by exploring the emergence of universities.
HIST37004 Radicalism and Class in Britain, 1760-1850
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Richard Sheldon
Social and political life in Great Britain underwent great transformations between the 1760s
and the 1840s. An increasingly urban and literate society came to engage in politics in novel
ways and to make new claims; above all radicals pressed for a shift in the base of power away
from aristocratic families and towards the people. Whilst reformers of the 1760s sought
recognition for those in ‘the middle station of life’, artisan radicals of the 1790s held that
‘every adult person, in possession of his reason should have a vote for a Member of
Parliament’. In the 1830s, working class movements built the first national organisation that
campaigned by means of mass protest for Parliamentary reform and an extension of the
franchise in the form of the Chartist movement. We will make use of source materials
ranging from autobiographies to radical publications through to parliamentary documents
including the reports of spies.
HIST37009 Thatcherism’s Legacy
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Prof Roger Middleton
This special subject studies the legacy of Thatcher and Thatcherism for British politics and
policy from the fall of Thatcher in 1990 through to the New Labour governments. Exploring
the twin filament of that legacy, that is both for the Conservative Party (initially in
government and then opposition) and for New Labour (initially long in opposition and
7
University of Bristol, History BA: Special Subject, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
latterly in government), this unit provides a political economy of contemporary Britain with a
sharp focus on the political contest and on government economic and social policies. With
the reconvergence of British politics towards the centre ground in the 1990s, this unit
examines the continuing difficulties experienced by the Conservative Party in developing a
sustainable post-Thatcher governing strategy and why and how from its genesis New Labour
absorbed not just the neo-liberalism of Thatcherism but important elements of Thatcher’s
statecraft.
HIST37010 Race and Resistance in South Africa
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Rob Skinner
This unit explores the rise and decline of racial segregation and apartheid in twentiethcentury South Africa. Using a range of sources, including visual sources, personal accounts
and literature, the unit addresses the ideological foundations of white supremacy and the
legislative framework that sustained it, and relates them to the social and cultural changes
wrought by the processes of industrialization and urbanization. The unit follows a
chronological structure, moving from an assessment of the social, cultural and ideological
foundations of racially- segregated society, through to the formation and extension of the
policy of apartheid under Afrikaner National Party. Students will assess the rise of popular
resistance and opposition to the crisis of legitimacy and attempts to reform the State in the
1980s, and finally to the delicate transition of power in the 1990s.
HIST30023 Childhood and the Nazis
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Joanna Michlic
This unit is designed to introduce students to various themes in the overlapping subject areas
of modern European history of childhood, World War II and the Holocaust. We will focus on
the experiences of children in Europe between 1933 and 1950. Children as a whole were
drastically affected by the policies of the Nazi regime and the war conducted in Europe, yet
different groups of children experienced the period in radically different ways, depending on
their backgrounds and where they lived. First, we will look at how the Nazis made children both those considered “Aryan” and those designated “enemies” of the German people, such
as Jewish children – an important focus of their politics. Next, we will examine German
boyhood and girlhood in the Nazi state, the treatment of Roma and Slav children, and daily
life experiences of Jewish children in the Holocaust. We will then explore children’s
experiences in the immediate postwar period: specifically their experiences of orphanhood,
displacement, rehabilitation, and the extent to which they were able to regain the normalcy of
childhood. Throughout, we will use a variety of different primary sources in English
translation, including diaries, memoirs, written and oral testimonies, pictorial material, and
documentary films. Students will discuss how these sources can be used in the historical
reconstruction of European childhood.
8
University of Bristol, History BA: Special Subject, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
HIST30024 Repressed or Risqué?: Victorian Sex and Sexuality
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Victoria Bates
Since the work of theorist Michel Foucault, historians have extensively debated the apparent
‘double standard’ and sexual repression (or lack thereof) of Victorian men and women. This
special subject will pay attention to such debates, with particular attention to questions
around whether we can treat ‘the Victorians’ as a homogeneous category. We will examine
how (expected) Victorian sexual behaviour differed according to class, race, age and gender.
The unit will also consider how best to approach sexuality as a historical concept, in the light
of recent scholarly emphasis that sexuality is a socially-constructed notion rather than a
‘natural’ one. In order to address these key themes the unit will address a number of
important topics relating to sex and sexuality in Victorian Britain, including
homosexuality/heterosexuality, sexual consent, the medicalisation of sex, sex education and
prostitution.
HIST30022 History through Literature in Early Modern Europe
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Fernando Cervantes
The early modern period saw the rise of a number of great literary figures that are still widely
read and enjoyed nowadays. In the English speaking world, Shakespeare is often regarded as
the greatest writer of all times; elsewhere he is often rivalled by his Spanish contemporary,
Miguel de Cervantes. Both writers seem to have been influenced by their French
contemporary, Michel de Montaigne. The unit will give students the opportunity to use a
selection of the works of these three writers as historical sources that shed light upon major
themes in early modern intellectual history. Among these are Humanism and its reception;
the impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation on European thought; shifts in the
early modern understanding of knowledge; the relationship between language and reality; the
discovery of America; and the early modern notion of the self.
HIST3xxx
Partition
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr. Daniel Haines
The death throes of the British Raj in India gave birth to two new countries in 1947, India and
Pakistan. With Pakistan intended as a homeland for India’s sizeable Muslim minority,
separating the two was a violent and highly contested process. Foreshadowing more recent
histories of ethnic cleansing, religious communities fought bloody battles to kill or drive each
other away. This unit examines Partition in its local and wider contexts. It examines the local
roots and consequences of violence as well as the ‘high politics’ played out by British,
Indian, and future Pakistani leaders in New Delhi and London. The unit also introduces the
longer history of Partition, both the events of colonial rule that led up to it, and its
consequences for Indian and Pakistani people during the following years. Topics range from
the roots of militant nationalism in the Bengal terrorist movement of the early 1900s and the
widespread targeting of women during the 1947 riots, to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by
a Hindu extremist in 1948 and the experiences of refugees who fled conflict. Alongside
secondary readings, the unit uses extensive primary sources including oral histories,
9
University of Bristol, History BA: Special Subject, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
polemical writings, maps, photographs, film, and the wealth of Partition fiction that South
Asian writers have produced since the events of 1947.
HIST3xxx
Information in the Age of Discovery
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr. Noah Millstone
Early modern Europe was transformed by information. Using new devices, natural
philosophers explored the sky, the human body, and the earth itself; travellers and
missionaries studied remote cultures; and publishers used the new technology of print to
produce scholarly monographs, lying pamphlets, and partisan newspapers. This unit
introduces students to the emerging field of information history. We ask: how was knowledge
produced and circulated? How did early moderns understand what they read? What was the
relationship between power, social status, and the production of knowledge? Students will
develop research techniques and gain experience in dealing with a variety of early modern
sources – business records, reading notes, newspapers – that are fundamental for
understanding what early modern people knew and how they saw the world. Important
themes include the print revolution, literacy and reading, the circulation of scientific and
political information, popular print and newspapers, and the emergence of a Republic of
Letters.
HIST3xxx
The Welfare State and Modern Britain
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Emily Baughan
Although 1948 is remembered as the birth of the British welfare state, the involvement of the
government in the wellbeing of its citizens has a far longer history. In this unit, we will
explore the gradual evolution of British welfare practice and policy from the formation in
1869 of a voluntary welfare bureau, the Charity Organisation Society, until the present day.
We will chart the shifting relationship between citizens and the state in modern Britain. Prior
to 1948, welfare was a ‘mixed economy’, provided via an ever-changing balance of local and
national government, and the largely voluntary efforts of private citizens. In our analysis, we
will carry this ‘mixed economy’ perspective through into the post-1948 era to explore the
continuing role in welfare provision of non-state actors, such as business, NGOs and
individual citizens. In doing so, this unit will place in historical context the contemporary
idea of the ‘Big Society.’ We will ask whether, as critics suggest, it rests upon ahistorical
nostalgia for the pre-1948 welfare tradition, or if it is simply a new way of viewing Britain’s
mixed economy of welfare, which has been a constant feature of national life since the
nineteenth-century. We will also explore the ways in which welfare debates within Britain
influenced the nature and extent of welfare provision by British colonial governments and, at
the same time, how innovations in health and social care in British territories overseas shaped
the development of welfare practice and policies at home.
10
University of Bristol, History BA: Special Subject, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
HIST37011 Kingship and Crisis during the Wars of the Roses
SPECIAL SUBJECT: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr David Harry
‘Sackage, carnage and wreckage’ is the 1066 & All That summary of the fifteenth century in
England, and its image as an era of anarchy and bloodshed has been crystallised in the
popular imagination from the history plays of William Shakespeare to Game of Thrones.
However, over the last forty years, increasing interest has been taken in this ‘Cinderella
century’ by scholars and controversy continues to rage over major issues of interpretation.
This special subject will address perhaps the most vital question – that of kingship during a
period of dynastic turbulence and usurpation. How was kingly authority conferred and its
continued validity restated and reaffirmed in a century when every occupant of the English
throne had his right to it challenged?
11
University of Bristol, History BA: Reflective History Units, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
The descriptions below are intended to act as a brief and user-friendly guide to the
optional units we are offering in 2014/15. Please note that we do not guarantee that all the
listed units will run. A unit may be withdrawn, for instance, if there is insufficient demand for
it. If you have any queries regarding the information below, we would strongly recommend
that you seek advice from your Personal Tutor.
HIST38006 Poverty and Famines in Historical Perspective
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Richard Sheldon
This unit asks the question why some people have been at the mercy of chronic poverty and
hunger whilst others experience life as a riot of affluence. It then seeks to explore the
question through a series of comparative studies of famines and their representation over the
period 1750-2010. Adam Smith famously argued that whilst food shortages had natural
causes, famines arose only from the inappropriate actions of states seeking to remedy dearth.
T.R. Malthus went further and argued that famines were inevitable natural phenomena
stemming from the imbalance of population and natural resources. These British ideas had a
defining influence on world history: first as key tenets of political economy, which enjoyed
an unrivalled international influence in the modern age, second through the agency of British
colonialism which oversaw famines in India, Ireland and Africa. More recent perspectives
suggest that human agency has and can play a larger role.
HIST38010 Describing Difference: Race, Culture and Ethnicity
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Rob Skinner
What makes people different? Do collective identities represent biological realities? What is
‘culture’? Is ethnicity merely a cipher for ‘race’? This unit examines the historical
development of the idea of ‘race’, and the associated concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’
since the mid-nineteenth century. The focus is upon the history of these ideas, tracing a
trajectory from the emergence of a language of race, through the rise of social Darwinism and
eugenics in the latter nineteenth century, before turning to examine two parallel concepts that
have emerged as ways of distinguishing human difference in the wake of the ‘retreat’ from
race in the post-1945 era. The concept of ‘culture’, as defined through the developing
discipline of anthropology will be examined, before turning to the idea of ‘ethnicity’, which
has become a (supposedly) neutral term for collective social identities in the recent past.
HIST38016 Discovering America
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Evan Jones
Covering the 15th century to an (imagined) 23rd, this unit is about the role the 1490s
‘discovery’ voyages, led by Columbus and Cabot, have played in popular consciousness and
identity formation of both Europeans and North Americans over a 500-year period. Who
were the ‘discoverers’? And how, and why, did they transform from being real-life explorers
to mythic embodiments of the American pioneer spirit? How have the reputations of these
men changed over time and to what extent do they still inspire policy making and popular
12
University of Bristol, History BA: Reflective History Units, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
aspirations today, whether through multi-billion dollar NASA programmes, or in the form of
television programmes that imagine futures where explorers ‘boldly go where no-man has
gone before’? These are some of the questions we will be asking in a unit that is as much
about the reception and meaning of the discovery voyages as it is about those who led them.
HIST38013 History, Law & Memory: The Holocaust on Trial
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Prof Tim Cole
This Reflective History unit explores the relationship between history, law and memory, by
taking a series of high profile trials related to the Holocaust as the starting point for broader
reflection. The trials span the period from the immediate aftermath of the war in Allied
controlled Europe, through Israel and West Germany in the 1960s, France in the 1990s and
Britain at the turn of the century. These trials raise questions about the nature of evidence, the
value of witness testimony, as well as the reasons for and nature of these different legal
proceedings. Ultimately they force us to range more widely and consider a host of bigger
issues such as the concept of crimes against humanity, international and national jurisdiction,
the instrumental use of trials by the state, media reporting, the nature of ‘truth’ for historians
and lawyers and the relationship between trials, history and memory.
HIST38018 Bringing History (and Historians) Down to Earth
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Prof Peter Coates
‘Man is a biological entity before he is a Roman Catholic or a capitalist or anything else’
(Alfred Crosby, 1972). But historians have traditionally been conservative in their conception
of what constitutes the proper territory of historical study. At a time when the earth’s
ecological condition is the most urgent issue confronting our species, this unit extends its
gaze beyond the narrowly human to consider human activity within a larger nonhuman
context. Key questions involve the character of environmental history and role/agency of
nonhuman protagonists (including animals and volcanic eruptions). Is environmental history
(EH) necessarily ‘green’ history? Does EH involve resurrection of a discredited
environmental determinism? How are human interactions with nonhuman nature mediated by
social history’s holy trinity of race, class and gender? Why should other historians pay
attention? What is the relationship between nature and nation? Here’s a new kind of natural
history that reflects on what happens when we inject nature into history and history into
nature.
HIST30021 Filming the Past
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr David Harry
Film-makers have been committing history to celluloid since the earliest days of the cinema.
From the silent movies of the turn of the twentieth century through the epic Hollywood
historical dramas of the forties and fifties to the blockbusters of the modern era, history has
provided a seemingly endless supply of plots and characters for viewers to enjoy, and
directors and studios to exploit. This unit will encourage students to reflect on the ways in
13
University of Bristol, History BA: Reflective History Units, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
which history has been presented on film. Students may be asked to think critically about
what historical films tell us about the societies in which they emerge, for example, or to
consider how historical films allow societies to improve their understanding of their own past
and come to terms with it. Students will be encouraged to reflect on aspects of historical
cinema that relate to their own fields of interest and to consider the value of film as a
historical source or documentary evidence.
HIST38002 Getting Acquainted with Friendship
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Kenneth Austin
The success of TV series like Friends, and websites websites such as Facebook and MySpace
highlight the centrality of friendship in the modern world, but of course it is not an
exclusively modern phenomenon: it has been discussed by philosophers from antiquity
onwards, and has found expression in virtually every society since. In this unit we investigate
the meaning, functions, and expression of friendship in past societies, using two parallel
methods of analysis. First, we will examine a number of case-studies covering a diverse range
of historical periods (ancient, medieval and modern). Second, we will evaluate various
methodologies used in related disciplines (e.g. philosophy, social anthropology, sociology)
and the extent to which they can aid our understanding of friendship in earlier centuries.
More broadly, we will consider the extent to which the concept has changed over time, and
whether it is possible to distinguish a distinctively ‘historical’ approach to friendship.
HIST38020 Propaganda
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr Anke Holdenried
Defined as information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a
political cause or point of view (Oxford English Dictionary), the term ‘propaganda’ has
clearly lost its innocence. Commonly considered a feature of modern mass society,
propaganda is associated with systematic and somehow sinister intervention by states and
governments for the purpose of manipulating public opinion, through central control of a
whole range of visual and printed media.
How appropriate is this view of propaganda, however? Is centralised government control
really a prerequisite of propaganda? Even before the term existed the practice of propagating
a particular point of view predates modern mass society by centuries. This Unit will explore
the mechanics of propaganda in different periods (from medieval times to the modern day) to
promote reflection on how and why partisan ideas were promoted and how historians have
thought about propaganda.
HIST38003 Witchcraft
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Prof Ronald Hutton
The unit confronts the fact that, in every inhabited continent of the world, people have
traditionally believed that some human beings have the power to harm others by uncanny
14
University of Bristol, History BA: Reflective History Units, Final Year, 2014/15, TB2
means, and do so from an innate tendency to evil. On the other hand, in every continent,
likewise, there have been societies who do not have this concept: it is not something inherent
in our species. Despite this, in Europe the belief has historically been dominant, and at one
point, at least, produced a bloodbath in the shape of what historians often call the Great Witch
Hunt. This bloodbath did not begin, however, until Europe was on the edge of modernity, and
it was immediately followed by a completely unique phenomenon in world history:
Europeans moved spontaneously from a belief in witchcraft to an equally positive official
disbelief in it. There are no agreed reasons for this remarkable pair of consecutive
developments.
At the present time, attitudes across the globe are more complex than ever. In the West, some
people have reversed pre-modern images of witchcraft, to turn it into a religion of
benevolence and self-fulfilment, while others retain vestiges of the ancient fears, that have
fuelled movements such as the panic over satanic ritual abuse of children. In the developing
world, violence against suspected witches is now a serious problem, and some post-colonial
states have started to stage witch trials again.
The subject of witchcraft, therefore, lies within a web of relationships, about each of which it
poses questions.One such relationship is between Europe and the non-European world, which
has in turn produced another, between the disciplines of history and anthropology. Another is
between the ancient world, and in particular Greek and Roman civilisation, and later
European culture; and this in turn has produced a debate over the relationship between
religion and magic. The controversy over the nature and causes of the Great Witch Hunt lies
within yet another series of connections and oppositions: between historians, between
different parts of Europe, between different levels of society, and between feminine and
masculine. The subject invites us to look at the way in which the present world relates to its
past, and the opposed meanings that members of the same contemporary society can find in
history. Finally, it embodies a further sort of relationship; between historians, and the broader
modern culture within which they work, and the irrational.
HIST30029 Going Global: Writing Global History
REFLECTIVE HISTORY: FINAL YEAR (TB2)
Dr. Simon Potter
‘Globalisation’ is one of the banal and glib buzzwords that plague our lives today.
Nevertheless, the idea of globalisation provokes strong emotional responses, from those who
celebrate it as the pathway to a bright, new, peaceful and prosperous future, but also those
who fear that it means the erosion of diverse cultures, the disempowerment of nations and
individuals and the growing power of rootless and irresponsible capital. Historians have not
been slow to engage in debates about globalisation, tracing the history of global
interconnectedness, seeking out the historical origins of contemporary globalisation, and
debating the consequences of globalisation for people around the world. This course will
explore these issues, allowing participants to bring their own knowledge of different places
and time periods to bear. We will think about how these case studies might be written into the
history of globalisation, but also how they might challenge and subvert such histories. We
might explore themes such as empires and globalisation, medieval and early modern global
connectedness, cultural histories of globalisation, European and non-European responses to
globalisation, Americanization, and the relationship between local, national and global
histories.
15