English and History BA (Hons)

Here is a guide to the subjects studied on this course.

Courses are continually reviewed to take advantage of new teaching approaches and developments in research, industry and the professions. Please be aware that modules may change for your year of entry. The exact modules available and their order may vary depending on course updates, staff availability, timetabling and student demand. Please contact the course team for the most up to date module list.
Year one
Elements of Criticism
Year: 1

This module offers students a basic introductory guide to literary criticism and interpretation, focusing upon the ways in which the formal structures of poetry, fiction and drama contribute to a diversity of effects and levels of meaning.

Modes of Reading
Year: 1

The module offers an introduction to the theory and practice of reading and criticism. It aims to enable students to work with a variety of approaches to texts, and to develop an informed awareness of the possibilities available to them as readers and critics.

Genres of Writing
Year: 1

ENG104 aims to assist students in improving the content, structure and style of their writing in professional and creative writing genres, including academic and report writing, journalism, fiction, non-fiction, drama, and poetry. Covering generic, audience, and market requirements, the module focusses on methods and techniques that will enable students to make informed editorial choices based on insights into the craft and business of writing, and on the demands and expectations of readers, publishers, and employers.

Making History: Skills for Historians
Year: 1

This module is designed to introduce students to the practical skills required for studying history at degree level and the methods and approaches that inform historical practice.

Literature and Society in Ireland: An Introduction
Year: 1

This module is optional

This module provides a broad introduction to Irish Literature in English written between the Act of Union (1800) and the Good Friday Agreement (1998). It will help students to build up a conceptual map of Irish literary history in English, understood within socio-economic, political, historical and cultural contexts. It will also give due recognition to the influence of the Irish language and Ulster-Scots literary traditions.

Writing Matters
Year: 1

This module is optional

The module introduces students to various shorter genres of writing (including the essay,short story, one-act play, memoir, detective story, science writing, journalistic article), examining key themes and issues that have 'mattered' to writers, and that have made writing 'matter', from the Renaissance to the present. Students will gain insight into various genres, discourses, writers, their work and its contexts; and will develop their own proficiency as critical readers and persuasive writers.

Pandemic Prose in the Viral Village
Year: 1

This module is optional

The modern environmental movement came to the fore in the 1960's and predicted both the current global pandemic and future climate change disasters that are some of the main issues of the 21st century. The literary arts reacted to such revelations by adapting the new genre of political dystopia to fit climate concerns - in the late 90's post-apocalyptic fiction and in the 21st century climate fiction or 'cli-fi' have been some of the bestselling literary genres. This is because they address the current concerns of the global world that we live in and allow people to reflect on its impact on their lives currently and to speculate as to possible ways to deal with future problems and the toll they will take on people both socially and psychologically. This module attempts to elicit a similar response from our students.

Defining America: Themes in American History, C17th -C20th
Year: 1

This module is optional

The module will illustrate and analyse the key themes and issues in American history from colonial times to the present day. Patterns and problems in the development of America will be discussed, and consideration of differing interpretations and source evaluations are implicit throughout the course. By the end of the module students should understand how the history of America has been shaped by the key events and debates that have taken place over the last four hundred years.

The Making of Modern Britain, 1750-1945
Year: 1

This module is optional

This module provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of modern Britain. It explores key themes such as industrialisation and urbanisation; reform and revolution; class and identity; religion, nationalism and unionism; war and empire. It utilises the latest historical scholarship and key primary sources delivered by research-active scholars via innovative lectures and seminars. The module brings to light the key events and historical processes which have shaped the Britain and Ireland of today.

'The Age of Extremes': International History 1914-2014
Year: 1

This module is optional

The purpose of this module is to provide Level 4 History students with an introduction to some of the main developments in world and international history from the First World War onwards. It is one of a number of broad, survey courses, designed to provide the basis for further, more detailed, study in subsequent years.

Disenchanted Land? Culture and Society in Early Modern Europe
Year: 1

This module is optional

This module will explore the structures of society in early-modern Europe, and the nature of early-modern social mentalities, daily social realities and material culture, cultural attitudes towards the natural world, varieties of religious belief and practice, and the supernatural in the early modern period: from notions in Heaven and Hell, to Angels, demons, witchcraft and magic. It will trace the effect on these beliefs and attitudes by the social, intellectual and cultural shifts associated with the Enlightenment.

Ireland, 1798-1998: Union and Disunion
Year: 1

This module is optional

This module examines key themes in Irish social and political history from the Act of Union to the Revolutionary period. Students will gain knowledge of important events such as the Famine, Land Wars, Easter Rising and War of Independence.

Year two
Early Modern English Culture 1509-1659: Poetry, Prose, Drama
Year: 2

This module is optional

The module introduces students to the literature of the English Renaissance. Canonical and non-canonical poetry, prose and drama will be studied within a framework of instruction on the sweeping changes brought to England by sectarian tension, increased literacy, changing politics and cultural innovation.

The Rise of the Novel
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module is designed to introduce students to the history of the development of early fiction in English, from the early adventure narratives of the Elizabethan era to the emergence of the novel as a leading literary genre in the mid-eighteenth century. It acquaints students with a range of thematic and formal sub-genres of fiction, ranging from tales of adventure to the philosophical romance, from religious allegory to the oriental tale, and from the picaresque to the epistolary.

Rhymes Of Passion: A Brief History Of Love Poetry
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module offers a broad survey of love poetry from its earliest foundations in ancient verse, through classical writing and philosophy, the great flowerings of the courtly and renaissance periods, to modernist and contemporary practice. Students will become aware of the historical significance of this sub-genre, familiar with its conceptual foundations and perennial features, as well as gaining an appreciation of its changing nature within different cultural contexts.

Writing and Editing
Year: 2

This module is optional

This practice-based module aims to advance the writing and editing knowledge and skills of students through lectures and workshops focusing on diverse genres of writing. Students are introduced to methods and techniques in the writing and editing processes. Instruction is given in the collaborative teamwork of writers and editors, with students adopting both roles during the course of the module. Formative assessment ensures that all students get a chance to edit and improve their own work (and some of each other's work) before final submission.

Modern Drama and Its Influences
Year: 2

This module is optional

The module introduces students to the history of the development of modern western drama. After accounting for the ancient traditions of Greek and Renaissance drama there is a focus on the radical aesthetic and thematic developments brought by European giants such as Ibsen and Chekhov. The module then addresses the great period of American tragedy as typified by the work of Williams and Miller before engaging with post-war drama by non-male and non-white writers such as Delaney, Fornes and Hansberry.

Sex and the City of God: religion and sexuality in American literature
Year: 2

This module is optional

Religion and sexuality are contested and related areas in American culture, not least because of the Puritan origins of the American self. This module explores the relationship between word and flesh in American writing from the colonial period to the present day. Studying poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose, students will consider the ways in which this Puritan heritage has been reproduced, challenged and changed, particularly in writings by women, African-Americans, and Native-Americans.

Beat Literature and Culture
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module studies writers of the Beat Generation, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gary Snyder. It also introduces the forerunners of the Beat generation (Thoreau, Emerson, Rimbaud), as well as its legacies at the end of the 20th Century (e.g. Burroughs' influence on punk), and after the millennium, for example in Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road (2006). The module uses interdisciplinary elements such as biographical studies, reference to film and music, and indications of the Beats' political and spiritual dimensions.

Angels, Madwomen and Whores
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module enables students to engage with a wide range of writing by women from the 1790s to the end of the nineteenth century. By examining both poetry and prose, this module will uncover self-determined literary representation of female experience throughout the modern period, allowing students to engage with the central issues of gender and identity which affect women's writing.

Writing the North: Ulster Literature
Year: 2

This module is optional

The module introduces students to writers from Ulster, to representations of, and imaginative responses to, the north of Ireland, and to the central debates surrounding these representations and responses.

Contemporary World Fiction in English
Year: 2

This module is optional

The module examine both European and non-European texts, many from genres beyond the literary mainstream (including science fiction, high fantasy and crime fiction). Representations in fiction of key themes and issues that arose in the post-war period in Europe, the Americas, and the Commonwealth countries will be examined, as well as questions of national and global identity as these influence novels from around the world.

Samuel Beckett Studies
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module celebrates Samuel Beckett the man and artist, whose innovations in theme and form pushed the boundaries of literature, redefined the medium of theatre, and caused him to be considered as one of the most influential writers of the Twentieth Century. The module explores Beckett's works in the chronology of the composition; students will be introduced to their historical, cultural and philosophical influences and will be able to trace the development and impact of Beckett's oeuvre.

Adaptation and Historical Fiction
Year: 2

This module is optional

Adaptation and Historical Fiction looks closely at the relationship between literature, history, film and television. The module explores how and why history provides material for fiction and explores the process of adaptation across different media. Texts include popular and experimental adaptations and re-imaginings of writers and historical periods from Shakespeare to Austen and beyond.

Gothic and Romantic Writing
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module surveys writing associated with Gothic and Romantic discourses, focusing in particular on the rise of the gothic novel at the end of the C18th, gothic imagery in Romantic writing, late-Victorian versions of the gothic, the concept of decadence both before and during the fin-de-siecle, and the rise of psychoanalytical models at the end of the C19th.

English Exchange 1
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.

English Exchange 2
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.

English Exchange 3
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.

English Exchange 4
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.

English Exchange 5
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.

English Exchange 6
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.

Eighteenth-Century Literature
Year: 2

This module is optional

Exploring English develops subject-based skills in the study of literature along with vocational skills for employment. The module encourages students to apply critical and innovative thinking to literary texts from before 1800 and to reflect on and develop their personal skills and attributes.

Detective Fiction
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module will trace the development of detective fiction from the C19th to the present day, across a variety of forms and subgenres, and from a variety of different theoretical perspectives.

Modern North American Feminist Writing
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module explains what sets feminist writing apart from other literary movements of the time. It traces the evolution of feminist writing from the cusp of the second-wave up to the contemporary millennial feminist writings in evidence today. This module explores what we mean by the terms 'feminist' 'feminism' and 'feminist writings' - asking whether these literary classifications restrict or aid our understandings of contemporary North American literature.

Exchange programme 1 - History Abroad
Year: 2

This module is optional

These modules provide an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. They are required modules for all History students on an intercalary study abroad semester or year during second year. They are not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of History whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

Exchange programme 3 - History Abroad
Year: 2

This module is optional

These modules provide an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. They are required modules for all History students on an intercalary study abroad semester or year during second year. They are not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of History whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

Exchange programme 4 - History Abroad
Year: 2

This module is optional

These modules provide an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. They are required modules for all History students on an intercalary study abroad semester or year during second year. They are not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of History whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

Exchange programme 5 - History Abroad
Year: 2

This module is optional

These modules provide an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. They are required modules for all History students on an intercalary study abroad semester or year during second year. They are not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of History whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

Exchange programme 6 - History Abroad
Year: 2

This module is optional

These modules provide an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. They are required modules for all History students on an intercalary study abroad semester or year during second year. They are not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of History whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

Exchange programme 2 - History Abroad
Year: 2

This module is optional

These modules provide an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. They are required modules for all History students on an intercalary study abroad semester or year during second year. They are not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of History whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

Family, Sexuality and the State 1850-1925
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module examines the role of the state in molding the history of the family and sexuality in Britain between 1860-1925. It looks at the forces which have influenced state policy as well as the impact on issues such as prostitution, homosexuality, gender roles and childhood.

Politics and Society in early modern Britain and Ireland
Year: 2

This module is optional

The module tracks the emergence of an internationally powerful British nation state by examining key issues and events from c.1630-1730. It will explore governance in contested kingdoms and diverse societies, the rise of the fiscal-military state and parliamentary monarchy, religious confessionalism and religious pluralism. It will also examine the early modern family, the emergence of the middle class, social and economic improvement, and the Early Enlightenment.

War and Peace: the Ying and Yang of human history
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module is designed to help fill a still largely existent gap in human historiography by introducing students to the other side of the coin of human development: the human 'instinctive imperative' towards peace and through contrasting this with the roots of war, promote an understanding of the patterns in war and peace & advancement in the course of human history, with a particular focus on the post-1648, post-1815, post-World War One, post-World War Two and post-Cold War/post-9/11 periods.

The Great Powers and the Middle East since 1880
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module explores the impact of the West on the Middle East and its contribution to conflict in the region since the end of the 19th Century.

Ireland and the European Union, 1961-2016
Year: 2

This module is optional

Ireland and Europe examines the reasons for Ireland's application to join the EEC, the interests informing its European policy, and the impact of the EU on Irish politics, administration, and society. There is a specific emphasis on key policy areas such as foreign policy, neutrality, cross-border co-operation, regional cohesion, and the Common Agricultural Policy. The module also explains the functions of the main EU institutions and their relation to member states, and examines the politics of the integration process and its implications for member states.

Film and the Vietnam Conflict
Year: 2

This module is optional

The module explores the history, media, film and political culture in the context of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The module explores major debates in the historiography of the era. Film representations of the war are subject to scrutiny for what they reveal about American society, and how they depict the changing perspectives of the "history" of the conflict. The module also follows the way in which the war developed and the changing attitudes it provoked at home and abroad.

The Myth and Reality of Imperial Spain, 1492-1700
Year: 2

This module is optional

This course examines the rise to power of the Spanish Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and its subsequent decline from the seventeenth century onwards. The following issues will be emphasized: Spain's Empire building; the image of Spain in the European political discourse; the military, economic, and social crises of the seventeenth century; the Spanish Golden age in art and literature vis-à-vis the concept of decadence; the importance of honor and religion in all realms of society; the racial issue: from the convivencia to the Inquisition; the court of the Habsburgs; and the cultural impact of Spain in the early modern world. In addition, the course will consider the diverse populations constituting the Spanish World, stressing such social and cultural strains as those between: center (Castille), and periphery (for example, Catalonia, Naples, and The Netherlands); Christians and converted Jews/Muslims; Spanish Conquistadores and indigenous populations; and the various racial castes created in the Americas.

Death, Disease, and Medicine in Britain, 1800-1914
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module introduces students to key themes and topics on the history of death and illness in the long nineteenth century. Drawing from social, medical and Victorian history, students will explore themes such as murder in the Victorian city, ghosts, asylums, suicide, Victorian funerals and bodysnatching. Students will examine interdisciplinary sources including literature and art, as well as standard historical sources.

Revolutionary Russia, 1894-1939
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module examines Revolutionary Russia from the last Romanov ruler through to the establishment of Stalinism in the USSR. Key historiographical debates will be examined and assessed. The political, economic, and social and cultural aspects of this period will be covered.

History in Practice: Preparing and Planning a History Research Project
Year: 2

This module is optional

This module combines theory, historical content, primary source analysis, and self-reflection to enable students to think effectively about the practice of history and the ways in which historical study can augment and enhance key transferrable and employability skills.

Year three
English Placement
Year: 3

This module is optional

This module provides students with the opportunity to experience life as a professional in the creative industries as a paid employee of a company. They will be expected to conduct themselves professionally being an employee of a company and an ambassador for the

English Abroad (DIAS)
Year: 3

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is a required module for all English students on an intercalary study abroad year between second and final year. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

History Abroad (DIAS)
Year: 3

This module is optional

This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland (one full academic year). It is a required module for all History students on an intercalary study abroad year between second (level 5) and final year (level 6). It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks.

Saints and Sinners: Women in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Ireland
Year: 3

This module is optional

This module will use the study of women in Irish society from 1850-2000 to consider the role of women in areas such as politics, religion, culture, work and sexuality and how their role and experiences changed over the period. It will allow students to gain an alternative historical perspective on the major political and societal changes of the period. Though the use of oral history students will gain a personal understanding of female experience in the past.

Year four
Romantics and Victorians
Year: 4

This module is optional

The module is designed to introduce students to the history of English literature of the nineteenth century. It will trace, through the study of a selection of celebrated and representative works of the period's poetry and prose, the rise and development of Romanticism and its continuation - and gradual transformation - in the writings of the Victorian era.

Twentieth-Century Literature
Year: 4

This module is optional

The module offers a broad survey of significant works of English literature written during the twentieth century. It will describe, through the analysis of a selected works by celebrated and representative writers of the period, some of the major cultural developments and thematic preoccupations of modern literature in English, in particular the aesthetics of late-Romanticism, modernism, twentieth-century realism, and post-modern developments.

The Moderns, 1910-1930
Year: 4

This module is optional

The module introduces students to literary modernism through poems and novels written between 1909 and 1930. It details, through study of a selection of works by celebrated modernist writers, the major thematic preoccupations and aesthetic innovations characteristic of this movement, focusing in particular on developing a conceptual understanding of modernism, and on its socio-historical significance in the context of contemporary cultural norms.

Dissertation
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module enables the student to plan, prepare, write up, and present a dissertation of 6,000 words on a topic selected by the student and researched under the guidance of a suitably qualified member of staff.

The Victorian Novel
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module is designed to introduce students to the thematic and formal diversity of early and mid-Victorian fiction, as illustrated through the works of the leading novelists of the period. The key themes studied will include, among others, the social problems of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, 'the woman question', the role of religion in society, and the operation of the literary market; in aesthetic terms, the novels on the module will exemplify a range of formats and story-telling conventions, from the psychological novel to the sensation novel, from realism to symbolism, and from comedy of manners to naturalism.

Writing and Publishing
Year: 4

This module is optional

Students on this module learn about the functions, and apply some of the methods, of professionals in the publishing process (by undertaking tasks associated with writers, literary agents, editors, etc.). They workshop their own and each other's writing, and edit texts to publication standard and requirements. At this level a relatively sophisticated degree of self-assessment is required regarding their accumulated insights into writing and publishing.

Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module examines American literature of the nineteenth century in its social, historical and cultural contexts.

Twentieth-Century American Literature
Year: 4

This module is optional

The module examines twentieth-century American literature and its engagement with the key social and political events of the country during that period. The post-World War 1 resurgence of America in the jazz age and the subsequent financial depression will be studied. The post-war rise of America as a global superpower and the impact of this perception on its writers will also be explored. The psyche of a country living the American Dream will be explored, mainly through its impact on minorities and on immigrant aspirations and experiences.

Body, Mind and Soul in Novels and Non-Fiction from Addison to Austen
Year: 4

This module is optional

A survey of ideas about the human body, mind and soul in texts ranging chronologically from Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's Spectator (1711) to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814). It investigates the links between literature and medicine, psychology and philosophy, and will be of interest to students who want to explore how literature engages with issues such as belief, education, pain, pleasure, sexuality and disease.

The Ulster-Scots Literary Tradition 1750 - 2000
Year: 4

This module is optional

The module introduces students to the history of Ulster-Scots literature from the middle of the eighteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century. It will trace the relationship of Ulster writing to Scottish and Irish cultural, literary, political, philosophical and linguistic influences in this period. The module will investigate the development, revivals and transformations of Ulster-Scots literature through an examination of its most representative and important authors.

From The Vote To The Pill: C20th And C21st Women's Writing
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module will enable students to engage with a variety of writing, in different genres, by women writers of the modern and the postmodern period, and will develop their understanding of the ways in which new political, social and sexual freedoms impacted upon women in the last century and beyond.

20th Century Irish Writers
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module celebrates three of the most influential (Irish) writers of the Twentieth Century, W B Yeats, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Through an examination of poetry, drama and prose we will consider the development of each writer's work, explore their relationship to Ireland and Europe and examine some of the most significant and innovative writing of the twentieth century.

Late Victorian And Edwardian Novel
Year: 4

This module is optional

The module is designed to introduce students to the thematic and formal diversity of late Victorian and Edwardian fiction, as illustrated through the works of the leading novelists of the period. The key themes studied will include, among others, the late Victorian crisis of values, the changing position of women in society, the implications of the growth of the British Empire, and the increasing interest in psychology; in aesthetic terms, the novels on the module will exemplify a range of formats and story-telling conventions, from the scientific romance to the Bildungsroman, from realism to symbolism, and from fantasy to naturalism.

Shakespeare
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module immerses students in the aesthetically and thematically plural worlds of Shakespearean drama and poetry. Many plays and poems are addressed; issues raised will include canonicity, genre, public and private performance, theatre as propaganda and/or resistance, women's roles, sexual license, censorship, animals and the environment, authorial celebrity, collaboration, anonymity, textual authority, nuances of dialogue and the historicising of drama and poetry.

Narratives of Slavery
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module invites students to explore a diverse range of literary texts and other media through which the history and legacy of the Atlantic slave trade has been represented.

Late Soviet Communism, 1953-1991
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module examines the attempts of the post-Stalin leadership to manage, reform, and improve the prosperity of Soviet domestic communism. The political, economic, and social and cultural policies of the three main general secretaries - Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev - will be examined and assessed critically.

United States Foreign Policy Since 1945
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module provides a comprehensive overview of US Foreign Policy since 1945. It considers the United States' place in the global political structure. It will examine defining moments in the history of US Foreign Policy, including the Cold War, Post-Cold War, and post-September 11th eras, analysing the administrations of Presidents from Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama.

History Research Project
Year: 4

This module is optional

The history dissertation module revolves around the construction of a thesis. Students will identify a suitable topic or issue in history that they would like to study and to plan and execute that study. Students will be allocated a dissertation supervisor who will advise them on their work, both in terms of relevant source materials, approaches and form of the dissertation, but it will be the student's responsibility to identify and locate sources, to subject these to critical evaluation and then to structure and present their dissertation in such a way that you communicate clearly your aims, objectives, evidence and conclusions - and all to an agreed schedule of drafts.

Workers and radicalism in modern Ireland, 1800-1939
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module investigates the evolution of the working class in Ireland, and its interaction with capital, labour organization, society, and politics.

Royal Splendours: Politics, Culture, and Patronage in the Courts of Europe, 1450-1715
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module will trace the evolution of early modern courts from Burgundy in the 15th century to Louis XIV's Versailles in the 17th century. The following issues will be emphasized: the interaction of the ruler with the courtiers through the unique prism of the various mechanisms that constructed ceremonial and etiquette; the communication of the court with wider strata of the population via the magnificent spectacles and festivities that were organized to aggrandize such ruling houses as the Habsburgs, the Bourbons and the Tudors; the extravagance of royal patronage, and the use of such luxury products as: art, fashion, and finery. In geographical terms, most of the emphasis will be put on the Spanish and French courts, which presented the principal models of kingship and courtly culture that were emulated by the rest of the courts of Europe. In addition, it will examine how these models influenced some of the more interesting case-studies in the Italian peninsula, such as the Papal court, the court of the Medici, and the viceregal court of Naples.

Imperial Retreat: The Decline and Fall of the European Overseas Empires
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module will examine the historical process since 1945 whereby European colonial powers either withdrew or were driven from formal occupation of their overseas possessions. The module will not only examine various interpretations of imperial disengagement but will also provide an in-depth study of the actual mechanics of European decolonisation for particular territories in South and South East Asia, Africa and the Pacific. It also aims to enhance student skills in evaluating interpretations put forward by historians through allowing them to make a detailed study of one particular colonial possession.

America in the Depression, 1929-1941
Year: 4

This module is optional

This is an interdisciplinary study of one of the most significant events in the history of the United States since 1900, the Depression that began in 1929 and lasted until the USA entered the Second World War in 1941. This course will examine the turbulent years of the Great Depression and the New Deal. It will cover political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of the events and circumstances that led to the Depression, the election of FDR in 1933, and the formulation of the New Deal as national policy. It will then look at various aspects of New Deal policies and will assess the achievements and limitations of those policies.

The Post-War Body: Medicine and Society in Britain and America, c.1945-90
Year: 4

This module is optional

This module examines the dramatic changes in experiences of health and illness that occurred in the twentieth century. Focusing on Britain and America, it explores how our attitudes to matters such as sex, death, eating, disability and mental health were revolutionized in the twentieth century. The module also looks at ethical problems issues such as Cold War human experimentation. Students will engage with broader themes such as class, gender and race relations.

Witchcraft and magic in early modern Europe and Colonial New England, c.1550-1780
Year: 4

This module is optional

The early modern period is often seen as the era of the European 'witch-panic', which saw around 40,000 people executed for the crime of witchcraft. This module will examine the many facets of the witchcraft experience in Europe and New England using a variety of contemporary sources: from images and printed books and pamphlets, to court records and private correspondence. It will examine patterns of witchcraft accusation and prosecution, the intellectual context of witchcraft beliefs, the connection between witchcraft and women, the decline in educated belief, and the continuation of popular notions and traditions. Early modern witchcraft will also be located in its wider magical context by exploring both popular magic. Developments in witchcraft and magic in the early modern period will also be linked to wider societal, cultural and religious changes.