As is well known, South Africa and the United States are two countries in which racial identity and conflict became peculiarly entwined with class formation and antagonisms. In the nineteenth century in both countries, slaves were always black, masters white; segregation arose in both places as new classes came into being and old ones (slaves, slaveholders, for example) declined; and labour movements in both states were to be stamped by a racism that often saw unions seeking to keep black workers out of particular jobs. Moreover, ethnic and racial identities came to have a salience so great that all too often they prevented general class solidarities from arising amongst black and white workers. Years of intense class consciousness, which saw great conflicts between labour and capital could also see murderous battles within the working class.
This module aims to explore the complex relationship of race to class in South Africa and the US from the time of the slavery through to the rise of racial segregation in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The module is designed to give students a greater understanding of the contexts which shape racial ideologies, conflict and discrimination. Topics traversed will include the comparative experience of slavery; key moments in slavery and the law; race and class at transitional moments (the Civil War and Reconstruction in the US South; the Boer War and Reconstruction period in South Africa); the relationship of the emergence of capitalism to the rise of segregation; the problem of racism and labour movements; and the utility of psychoanalytic perspectives to the analysis of racial consciousness.
This module aims to explore the complex relationship of race to class in South Africa and the US from the time of the slavery through to the rise of racial segregation in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The module is designed to give students a greater understanding of the contexts which shape racial ideologies, conflict and discrimination. Topics traversed will include the comparative experience of slavery; key moments in slavery and the law; race and class at transitional moments (the Civil War and Reconstruction in the US South; the Boer War and Reconstruction period in South Africa); the relationship of the emergence of capitalism to the rise of segregation; the problem of racism and labour movements; and the utility of psychoanalytic perspectives to the analysis of racial consciousness.
Slave-trade, slavery and its Abolition have, for long time, constituted well established areas of historical research. Only more recently has interest shifted to Afro-American culture and post-emancipation societies, as part of the emerging field of post-colonial studies.
This course will start with the aftermath of Abolition in Brazil and the Caribbean and focus on three broad themes:
I) The transformation from slaves into workers and peasants.
II) The development of Afro-American popular culture.
III) 'Race', racism and citizenship.
This course will start with the aftermath of Abolition in Brazil and the Caribbean and focus on three broad themes:
I) The transformation from slaves into workers and peasants.
II) The development of Afro-American popular culture.
III) 'Race', racism and citizenship.
This module will explore how the past is transmitted and constructed in numerous public contexts, allowing students to compare contemporary presentations with those from a previous era. We will examine the many different genres and spaces through which history is, and has been, conveyed, from the museum, to the documentary, to the war memorial, school textbook, Hollywood epic and even computer game. The workshop aspect of this module will enable students to bring the theoretical understanding they draw from their readings into regular seminar discussions with the University's own public history practitioners, who will describe and answer questions about their past and current projects. Students will discover how scholarly research is made accessible to a wider audience; the way medium and audience interact to shape what kind of history is presented; the role of history, memory and myth in the creation of public identities; and the political contests that 'applied' history often generates. Students will also be given the opportunity to themselves create, participate in, and/or critique a piece of public history as part of their coursework assessment.
This module focuses on the theoretical and methodological implications of the 'cultural turn'. It introduces students to key concepts in the field, exploring debates about the meanings of such terms as 'subjectivity', 'identities', and 'discourse'. The latter part of the course pursues the possibilities opened by cultural approaches, as reflected in new and emerging debates and themes such as childhood, public and private, sex, the psyche, and memory. Throughout we will be asking questions such as: what makes cultural history distinctive? What are its sources? How does an emphasis on representation change or challenge accepted notions of the relationship between language and experience, evidence and interpretation, the economic and the cultural?
Food is the bread and butter of human civilization - except, both bread and butter are culturally specific. Let's broaden our minds. The traditions of what is considered edible, how it is produced, prepared and consumed are central to the definition to each society's culture and, at the same time, often demonstrate enduring traditions of inter-continental contacts. In a globalised economy where the supermarket can provide us the foodstuffs whatever the season and whatever their country of origin, we are liable to forget both how local food cultures can be and, equally, how long-standing global transfer of comestibles has been. This module will investigate the cultural and social history of food, centring around the changes created by the encounters between the Americas and Europe from the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century.
Your dissertation is the centrepiece of your MA work. It gives you the opportunity to develop and to demonstrate your skills as an academic researcher and scholarly author, as you investigate and interpret a topic of your choosing.
This module covers practical issues relating to researching History in Britain. Subjects covered include: identifying the skills required for particular historical research projects; choosing and funding research topics; project management; interaction with the University and supervisor; the use of libraries and archives; bibliographical skills; and writing up and publishing research. The module also covers particular sources and methods for their analysis including: institutional records; autobiographies, diaries and oral history; legal records; and visual records, including film. There will also be a visit to the Essex Record Office.
The aim of this module is to provide students with a rigorous and practical preparation for undertaking historical research in Britain in the period since the sixteenth century. By the end of the module students should have come to understand the structures of archival and library provision in the UK; acquired practical skills of project management; and familiarised themselves with some of the key institutions and sources they will need to use in their research.
The aim of this module is to provide students with a rigorous and practical preparation for undertaking historical research in Britain in the period since the sixteenth century. By the end of the module students should have come to understand the structures of archival and library provision in the UK; acquired practical skills of project management; and familiarised themselves with some of the key institutions and sources they will need to use in their research.
The experience of total war transformed the relationship between citizen and state in twentieth-century Britain. The first and second world wars saw a massive expansion of state power into everyday life: men and women were mobilised to serve in the armed forces and as workers in the domestic war economy. Alongside increases in the 'obligations' placed on citizens there was also an expansion of 'rights', from the expansion of the franchise from 1918 to the implementation of the welfare state after 1945. The cold war also had a profound impact on British citizenship. The state compelled young men to serve in the military until the early 1960s; it stigmatised members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, declaring communists to be unthinking agents of an enemy power. Cold war citizenship was not simply a top-down affair imposed by the state, however. Ordinary people articulated their own visions of citizenship based on resistance to the cold war orthodoxy, whether as Marxists or peace activists. This module will explore how the cold war shaped the concept and practice of citizenship in Britain after 1945, allowing students to analyse how the conflict led to new understandings of the citizen's relationship with the state and the wider community.
The concept of martyrdom has had a powerful impact on many different religions, cultures and societies throughout the world but its influence has been especially potent in England and Scotland. The concept of martyrdom has however, been as protean as it is potent. From the late Middle Ages through to the present the ideas of what a martyr is and what martyrdom entails have changed and developed considerably. Yet at no period has the idea of martyrdom been without considerable cultural and political significance in Britain. (Those who doubt that this applies to the present might contemplate the career and reputation of the late Nelson Mandela). Even more importantly, the memorialising of Protestant martyrs was an indispensable part of the anti-Catholicism which destabilized the monarchies of England and Scotland before bringing them together in the 1707 Act of Union. This module will explore the changing conceptions of martyrdom over the centuries in Britain, how they changed, the reasons for these changes, and their effects. Yet while martyrdom is one focus of this module, it is not the only one. The other focus is on historiography. We will examine the ways in which concepts of martyrdom were disseminated are disseminated today. In this module the students will examine a range of different sources: manuscripts, early modern printed books and secondary works. They will be examining historical novels, plays, films and book illustrations. These are not histories but they provide historical narratives that are a proper part of historiography. They will also be drawing on various disciplines as well as history for analysis, including gender history, history of the book, literary analysis and network analysis.
The overall outcome of the course will therefore be twofold: it will assess the development and importance of ideas of martyrdom but it will also develop the skills necessary for the study of early modern Britain.
The overall outcome of the course will therefore be twofold: it will assess the development and importance of ideas of martyrdom but it will also develop the skills necessary for the study of early modern Britain.
The traingular trade of human beings and colonial commodities between Europe, Africa and the Americas resulted in the formation of an Atlantic space during the early modern period. The slave plantation embodies the core institution for the development of a transatlantic economy, and, ultimately, the emergence of a modern world system. Slavery represents a major field of scholarship with an impressive corpus of texts, from the treatises by planters and monks, slave autobiographies and pamphlets written by abolitionists to the quickly growing contemporary historiography. Yet the study of slavery has, as David Brion Davis pointed out, been characterised by parochialism until very recently. A comparative approach to slavery in the Atlantic world is able to offer fresh insights into the history of European expansion and colonialism, the multiple reactions and adaptions of local societies along the Atlantic rim, and assess developments that affected more than one country or even a single colonial empire, thus highlighting broader historical trends that are becoming more visible in the contemporary process of globlisation.
The course aims to provide students with an understanding of recent developments in the historgraphy of slavery and the Atlantic world. During the initial sessions you will learn to differentiate between the various forms of slavery in Europe, in Muslin societies and in pre-colonial Africa south of the Sahara, and to understand debates about the impact of the transatlantic slave trade and plantion slavery on Europe and Africa. The core of the module aims at a comparison between the different slave societies set up by the Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and British in the Americas. Eash session will be dedicated such as: the political economy of plantation slavery, the social structure of slave societies, slave women and family, slave culture and religion, slave resistance, maroon societies, and slave rebellions. The last session on the abolitions of slavery will draw comparisons between the process in different colonial empires or, in the case of the US and Brazil, former colonies that became independent states relying on slavery. Students should learn how to handle a fast growing literature, to understand historiographical debates in the field and their contemporary political implications. They will be encouraged to draw wider comparisons. Writing an essay on a comparative theme will develop your skills in comparative history.
The course aims to provide students with an understanding of recent developments in the historgraphy of slavery and the Atlantic world. During the initial sessions you will learn to differentiate between the various forms of slavery in Europe, in Muslin societies and in pre-colonial Africa south of the Sahara, and to understand debates about the impact of the transatlantic slave trade and plantion slavery on Europe and Africa. The core of the module aims at a comparison between the different slave societies set up by the Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and British in the Americas. Eash session will be dedicated such as: the political economy of plantation slavery, the social structure of slave societies, slave women and family, slave culture and religion, slave resistance, maroon societies, and slave rebellions. The last session on the abolitions of slavery will draw comparisons between the process in different colonial empires or, in the case of the US and Brazil, former colonies that became independent states relying on slavery. Students should learn how to handle a fast growing literature, to understand historiographical debates in the field and their contemporary political implications. They will be encouraged to draw wider comparisons. Writing an essay on a comparative theme will develop your skills in comparative history.
Drugs are an intricate part of modern history. Study on drugs opens an opportunity for us to approach modern history from a different, refreshing yet equally authentic angle. This module questions the received knowledge by looking at the cultural and social history of drugs from the sixteenth century to the twenty first century. It covers opiates use in China and Britain as well as the global culture of smoking well before the advent of the 'Opium War' and 'War on Drugs' from the second half of the nineteenth century. It charges the multiplicity of drugs used in the twentieth century and highlights their diverse modes of consumption by a variety of social groups, from opium-smoking scholars to morphine-consuming housewives and heroin-injecting peddlers. The module will also show how prohibition in the early twentieth century contributed to social exclusion, driving drug consumption downwards the social ladder as it criminalised, and how far government policies purporting to contain narcotics actually created a 'drug problem'.