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top 10 in the uk for research quality

Take your interest in History across the pond!

BA (Hons) History and American Studies at Northumbria combines the study of the past with themes of American society, culture, and politics. You will learn to think about how history provides a deeper perspective on present-day challenges, and apply these ideas to aspects of the American present, as well as focusing on how these skills can enhance your future career options.

You will gain new understanding of present-day concerns, including environmental change, racial and gender equality, war and conflict, and economics and health. You will also have the opportunity to delve into African, British, Middle Eastern, and European history, with options taking you from the medieval to the contemporary world.

How does Northumbria’s History & American Studies course help your future career options?

Our degree sets you on a path towards a wide range of future careers. We give all students a chance to work on a placement with a local business or cultural partner, and our unique module on place and heritage helps you learn about policy making in the real world. More broadly, as you explore new approaches to understanding conflict and society, past and present, in the Americas and beyond, you will be prepared for many future careers. Recent alumni work in jobs that range from barrister or property manager to university researcher to archive manager, author, teacher, and much more.

Northumbria’s History & American Studies learning experience

You will be taught by leading researchers in the field. Our historians were ranked 10th in the UK for the quality of their published research in the Research Excellence Framework, 2021. You also develop your own research skills, leading to a dissertation in Year 3 that will give you a voice in contemporary historical debates and build your confidence as you think about your own career after graduation.

You will also have the option of extending your studies, either taking a placement year in industry or opting to study abroad in continental Europe or North America.

Why choose Northumbria to study History & American Studies? 

  • History at Northumbria is ranked 26th in the UK for research power, out of 81 institutions (REF, 2021). This represents a rise of 5 places since 2014.

  • Over 95% of students studying History at Northumbria believed they had chance to explore ideas and concepts in depth (NSS, 2024).

Discover all of our available History Courses or see similar courses: History and Politics BA.

Course Information

UCAS Code
T720

Level of Study
Undergraduate

Mode of Study
3 years Full Time or 4 years with a placement (sandwich)/study abroad

Department
Humanities

Location
City Campus, Northumbria University

City
Newcastle

Start
September 2025

Fees
Fee Information

Modules
Module Information

History at Northumbria University

Discover more about what you will learn on the course, more about our academics research interests, and hear from our alumni's by watching our videos.

Department / Humanities

Our Department of Humanities includes the subject areas of History, English Literature, English Language and Linguistics, Creative Writing and American Studies.

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Department

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Study

Book an Open Day / Experience History and American Studies BA (Hons)

Visit an Open Day to get an insight into what it's like to study Humanities Foundation Year. Speak to staff and students from the course and get a tour of the facilities.

Entry Requirements 2025/26

Standard Entry

112 UCAS Tariff points

From a combination of acceptable Level 3 qualifications which may include: A-level, T Level, BTEC Diplomas/Extended Diplomas, Scottish and Irish Highers, Access to HE Diplomas, or the International Baccalaureate.

Find out how many points your qualifications are worth by using the UCAS Tariff calculator: www.ucas.com/ucas/tariff-calculator

Northumbria University is committed to supporting all individuals to achieve their ambitions. We have a range of schemes and alternative offers to make sure as many individuals as possible are given an opportunity to study at our University regardless of personal circumstances or background. To find out more, review our Northumbria Entry Requirement Essential Information page for further details www.northumbria.ac.uk/entryrequirementsinfo

Subject Requirements:

There are no specific subject requirements for this course.

GCSE Requirements:

Applicants will need Maths and English Language at minimum grade 4/C, or an equivalent.

Additional Requirements:

There are no additional requirements for this course.

International Qualifications:

We welcome applicants with a range of qualifications which may not match those shown above.

If you have qualifications from outside the UK, find out what you need by visiting www.northumbria.ac.uk/yourcountry

English Language Requirements:

International applicants should have a minimum overall IELTS (Academic) score of 6.0 with 5.5 in each component (or an approved equivalent*).

*The university accepts a large number of UK and International Qualifications in place of IELTS. You can find details of acceptable tests and the required grades in our English Language section: www.northumbria.ac.uk/englishqualifications

Fees and Funding 2025/26 Entry

UK Fee in Year 1: £9,535

* You should expect to pay tuition fees for every year of study. The University may increase fees in the second and subsequent years of your course at our discretion in line with any inflationary or other uplift, as decided by the UK Government, up to the maximum amount for fees permitted by UK law or regulation for that academic year. To give students an indication of the likely scale of any future increase, the UK government has recently suggested that increases may be linked to RPIX ( Retail Price Index excluding mortgage interest payments)


International Fee in Year 1: £19,350


Please see the main Funding Pages for 25/26 scholarship information.

 


ADDITIONAL COSTS

As the degree programme includes reading and analysing literary and historical articles, students may wish to purchase or print copies of primary materials (scholarly texts, novels, collections of poetry, plays, etc.) for their own personal use in seminars to allow for annotation and close engagement. The combined cost of purchasing and/or printing primary texts is approximately £100 per year, though this figure depends on editions purchased and can be reduced significantly by using the library, buying second-hand, accessing e-books and locating articles electronically where possible and appropriate.

If you’d like to receive the latest updates from Northumbria about our courses, events, finance & funding then enter your details below.

* At Northumbria we are strongly committed to protecting the privacy of personal data. To view the University’s Privacy Notice please click here

Modules

Module information is indicative and is reviewed annually therefore may be subject to change. Applicants will be informed if there are any changes.

AM4001 -

Introduction to American Studies (Core,20 Credits)

This module offers a practical and historical introduction to American Studies as a distinct, multifaceted, and evolving discipline, while also allowing you to acquire and practice key learning, research, and communication skills which will be of use throughout your university career and beyond. The module is content driven, with readings and themes drawn from across the entire range of American history, literature, politics, and popular culture, but particular emphasis will be placed on helping you to understand and master the basic tools and protocols of academic scholarship, thereby helping you to make the transition from school to university level work.
The skills which this module will help you to develop will include finding, reading and evaluating various kinds of primary and secondary sources; understanding the ways in which scholarship advances through constructive criticism and debate; correct referencing; finding an effective academic writing style; making oral presentations; and designing, researching and writing an independent research project.

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HI4003 -

The Making of Contemporary Europe (Core,20 Credits)

This module will enable you to learn about the emergence of contemporary Europe by surveying the continent’s history from the 18th century to the present. Its thematic overview of the history of Europe and its relationship with the non-European world, will provide you with an introductory knowledge and understanding of global developments. It covers key issues in the social, economic and political transformation of Europe during this period, dwelling on events in Britain and Europe where necessary, but always maintaining an international perspective. You will be encouraged to think in terms of European development as a whole, and not in terms of discrete national histories, and to make comparisons between different parts of the continent, often on a regional rather than a national basis. Many of the important events which are often seen to be rooted in a particular national considerations are nevertheless are also part of broader contexts which transcend national boundaries. For example, the collapse of the old aristocratic order, profound long-term upheavals in the international economy, the spread of communist ideology, and the rise of fascism, to name but a few.

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HI4005 -

From Sea to Shining Sea: US History from 1776 to 2008 (Core,20 Credits)

This module will provide you with an overview of the social, political and cultural development of the United States from revolutionary period to the present day. Within a broad chronological framework, this module will introduce you to key themes within modern American history: race, gender, ethnicity, class, regionalism, the media, and foreign policy. Topics include the American Constitution, Jacksonian America, the antebellum and Civil War period, Reconstruction, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Cold War. You will have the opportunity to consider the major controversies in American history, key concepts, and the nation’s transformation from a colony to a superpower.

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HI4006 -

Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe 1200-1720 (Core,20 Credits)

You will be introduced to the history of late medieval and early modern Europe from 1200 to 1720, and to a variety of topics including the interaction between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, the growing power of the monarchies of England, France, and Spain, and the development of print culture. You will engage with broader themes in medieval and early modern history, such as rural and urban society, the economy, religion, gender, culture, warfare and state formation, and voyages of discovery, and follow these comparatively across period and place. You will also learn about the different types of source material used by historians of this period of European history, such as medieval court records, state documents, popular literature, and visual images.

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HI4007 -

Making History (Core,20 Credits)

History is not only characterised by knowledge and understanding of past developments, but also by a broad range of skills and methods that are directly applicable to academic research. Within this wider context, this module will give you a firm grounding in the skills and methods needed for the study of history, introducing you to a range of source materials from a broad chronological spectrum. In so doing, the module explores traditions in criticism and explains the ways in which sources can be read and utilised. The module is structured along five ‘core skills’ blocks (Writing History, Handling Sources, Approaches to History, Researching & Interpreting History, and Feedback and Careers) which progress logically from each other and provide students with ample opportunities to engage with how historians make history. The first block introduces you to how to study and write history through an analysis of the historian’s key skills. The block also develops skills in three areas: (1) writing history; (2) reading history (3) researching history. The second block examines key approaches to historical sources. In addition to allowing you to demonstrate the skills gained in block one, the block concentrates on how to find primary sources, how to read them, and how to deploy them in written work. Block three considers key conceptual approaches to the past, including race, class and gender. Block four draws the skills you have learnt in a concentrated study of a single secondary source book. . The final block introduces you to careers in and beyond History, and asks you to reflect on your progress over the year. You will develop a critical capacity to scrutinize sources and interpretations of the past.

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HI4009 -

Cultures, Empires and Ideas: Global Histories of Power and Ideology (Core,20 Credits)

This module deals with major historical concepts and questions, and it allows you to study how these took (or changed) shape in different periods and parts of the world. In Semester 1, the emphasis is on the themes of empire and civilisation. You will investigate features that may have been shared by different empires and you will consider how these sought to rule over diverse populations. Empires often claimed to be acting as ‘civilising’ forces and the module allows you to question imperial ideologies of this kind. Moreover, you consider cultural interactions, from coexistence and mutual exchange to violence and oppression.

In Semester 2, you will analyse and discuss a range of primary texts that will introduce you to particular ideas, their historical contexts and significance. You will encounter key works in the history of political thought and will thus get to analyse arguments about the meaning of the state, the nature of government and the necessity for political change. In this context, you will consider challenges to existing hierarchies and power relations, including those linked to empire, as well as the assumptions that underpinned such inequalities.

The module enables you to study historical phenomena and ideas from the ancient world to the present day. Its overall approach is global, with a geographical scope that encompasses Europe, the USA, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Arab World and China.

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YC5001 -

Academic Language Skills for Humanities and Social Sciences (Core – for International and EU students only,0 Credits)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

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AD5012 -

Humanities Study Abroad (40 credit) (Optional,40 Credits)

The Study Abroad module is a semester based 40 credit module which is available on degree courses which facilitate study abroad within the programme. You will undertake a semester of study abroadat an approved partner University elsewhere. This gives you access to modules from your discipline taught in a different learning culture and so broadens your overall experience of learning. The course of study abroad will be constructed to meet the learning outcomes for the programme for the semester in question, dependent on suitable modules from the partner and will be recorded for an individual student on the learning agreement signed by the host University, the student, and the home University (Northumbria). The module will be assessed by conversion of graded marks from the host University.

Learning outcomes on the year-long modules on which the student is unable to attend the home institution must be met at the host institution, and marks from the host are incorporated into the modules as part of the overall assessment.

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AM5002 -

American Studies Extended Essay (Core,20 Credits)

The American Studies Extended Essay is designed as an opportunity for you to apply and build on the skills you have acquired in Level Four core modules and prepare yourself for the demands of the American Studies Dissertation in Level Six. It is an exercise in independent research and is intended to be a piece of work that utilises an interdisciplinary approach to a selection of primary and secondary sources. Extended Essay topics will be developed in conjunction with an appropriate subject specialist.

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AM5002 -

American Studies Extended Essay (Optional,20 Credits)

The American Studies Extended Essay is designed as an opportunity for you to apply and build on the skills you have acquired in Level Four core modules and prepare yourself for the demands of the American Studies Dissertation in Level Six. It is an exercise in independent research and is intended to be a piece of work that utilises an interdisciplinary approach to a selection of primary and secondary sources. Extended Essay topics will be developed in conjunction with an appropriate subject specialist.

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HI5004 -

Affluence and Anxiety: The US from 1920 to 1960 (Optional,20 Credits)

Historians and other researchers have often used the terms of ‘affluence’ and ‘anxiety’ to describe US history and culture from 1920 to 1960. According to a traditional narrative, Americans enjoyed unprecedented ‘affluence’ in the 1920s and in the postwar period, while experiencing great ‘anxiety’ in the context of the Cold War. While useful, these narratives do not fully account for the complexity of this period. In this module, we will ask questions such as: Who took advantage of affluence (pre- and post-WW2)? Who was excluded from it and how? How did American conceptions of affluence fundamentally shape our current climate crisis? Beyond Cold War anxieties, what were Americans, in their diversity, worried about? How did foreign policy anxieties reveal themselves at home? And how did racial and gender anxieties shape US politics and culture?

With these questions in mind, we will assess and analyse major developments and events of the period, including, but not limited to: the roaring 1920s, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the postwar “economic miracle,” the suburban boom, and the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. By narrowing our focus on four crucial decades of the 20th century, we will be able to look at these events from various angles. In accordance with recent developments in the field, we will pay particular attention to historiographical interpretations that emphasize race, gender, sexuality, and class, as well as the environment. This will mean, for instance, that you will not only learn about the anti-communist ‘Red Scare’ of the 1950s, but also about the lesser known ‘Lavender Scare’ that targeted gay men and women working for the US government. Similarly, we will study Rosa Parks’ efforts to desegregate the buses in 1950s Birmingham, but we will also pay attention to ordinary actors of the Civil Rights Movement, such as the African-American youths who desegregated swimming pools and amusement parks.

Primary and secondary source readings, along with classroom activities, will help you to critically engage this key era of American development and develop the interpretive skills of a historian.

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HI5005 -

America in the 1960s (Core,20 Credits)

This module offers you the opportunity to study the domestic social, cultural, political, and economic history of the United States during the “long 1960s” (roughly 1956-1974). Interdisciplinary in approach the module allows you to examine a range of secondary and primary sources – including television, literature, music, film and visual culture – that illuminate the history and culture of the US during this period. The module also encourages you to consider the perils and advantages of dealing with the 1960s as a discrete historical period, involves you in some of the most important scholarly debates in the field, and asks you to consider how the decade has been remembered and misremembered in popular consciousness by exploring later cultural representations and political uses of the 1960s. Key topics include the Cold War and Vietnam; consumerism; the civil rights and black power movements; national and local politics; science, technology and the environment; youth culture; gender and sexuality; identity politics; regionalism; the New Left and the Counterculture; conservatism and the New Right; mass media and popular music.

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HI5009 -

Your Graduate Future (Optional,20 Credits)

This module aims to ensure that you will be equipped with employability-related skills appropriate to graduates of History and associated degrees. The module adapts to your interests, whether you choose to pursue postgraduate study, enter the job market seeking graduate level employment, or establish your own enterprise. One of the purposes of Your Graduate Future is to raise your awareness of the wide range of possibilities, and to equip you with the knowledge, the skills and the experiences that may enable you to respond effectively to future opportunities. This module now includes a “Standard Pathway” and a “Law Pathway”, delivered in collaboration with Northumbria School of Law. For the Standard Pathway, in semester 1 you will attend lectures and participate in seminars that will present the intricacies of contemporary job seeking in different sectors. These will include guest lectures. You will then work with a group of your peers on an outward-looking project that will enable you to display your specific skills, to establish and nurture internal and external contacts, and to express your interests in a public outcome of your choice. In semester 2, you will develop your CV and further explore your evolving skillsets by means of engaging on your choice of work experience, volunteering, enterprise planning or a placement abroad. These will take the shape of supported independent activities. Assessment consists of a group project with a public outcome, an individual report reflecting on the scholarly basis of your project and your assessment of the process, and a placement report (at the end of semester 2). Students in the Law Pathway will also attend the lectures, and will follow a bespoke schedule of workshops, seminars, a field visit to The National Archives in London including archival training and a private tour of the archives. They will also undergo two specialised training sessions in Newcastle. Students in both pathways will follow the same assessment pattern, but those in the Law Pathway will work alongside students from the Law School to investigate a historical legal case using original archival material from The National Archives and Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, and their group project will see them produce public facing history outputs for these external clients, including exhibitions, website blogs, and contributions to their official social media channels. In Semester 2, the ‘Placement’ element will work with Law students to design and stage a reconstruction of the trial itself.

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HI5014 -

From Reconstruction to Reunification: Europe, 1945-1991 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about the problems that Europe faced at the end of the Second World War and the factors that led to the economic boom of the post-war years. These developments will be placed in the context of the struggle between the rival socio-political ideologies of liberalism and communism and the emergence of new social movements in Europe between 1945 and 1991. The module deals with the era of extended military and political confrontation between the main rival socio-political systems which defeated fascism and the eruption onto the world stage of 'new social forces' such as feminism and Third-World nationalism. It covers the key developments in European politics and society as well as Europe's relationship with the wider world during the period.

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HI5022 -

The Holocaust (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about the Holocaust in its full global, historical context. You will engage with the major historiographical debates surrounding the Shoah. Crucially, throughout the module, there will be a dual focus on the Holocaust’s perpetrators and its victims. The breadth of this focus ensures that the module will be interdisciplinary and you will learn how to navigate historical, literary and sociological perspectives on the Holocaust and its memory.

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HI5033 -

Civilians and the Second World War (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, you will learn about the civilian experiences of total warfare during the period of the Second World War (bearing in mind that exact dates of conflict and occupation vary from nation to nation). The class will take an international comparative approach, examining civilian experiences not just on the British ‘Home Front’ but also experiences in America, Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union as well the states under enemy occupation. The module will take a thematic rather than nation based approach to this area of study. Topics including bombardment, childhood, gender, work and labour, domestic life, internment, occupation, collaboration and resistance will all be explored internationally and comparatively. You will engage with a broad range of historical debates and concepts as well as engaging with a wide variety of primary materials including state propaganda, film, radio broadcasts, oral testimony, diaries, memoirs and archival material. This will equip you to think critically about both historiography and primary sources.

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HI5034 -

Setting America Right: Conservatism in the United States, 1933 - 2016 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will explore the history of conservatism in the United States of America from the 1930s to the present day. Beginning with opposition to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, this module will trace the evolution of American conservatism through the era of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and all the way up to the emergence of Donald Trump and the ‘alt-right’. At the heart of this module is a simple question: did the U.S. ‘turn right’ during the twentieth century? In answering that question, you will grapple with the fundamental issue of what it means to be a ‘conservative’ in America and how that label has been used and fought over in different eras and contexts.

You will learn about developments in high politics and at the grassroots, and gain an understanding of conservative movements both within and without the Republican Party. As well as learning about crucial events in recent U.S. political history (such as Barry Goldwater’s transformational 1964 presidential campaign), you will learn about the ways that conservatives revolutionised the nation’s political culture, pioneering innovative electoral techniques such as direct mail and constructing formidable conservative media outlets like Fox News. The module is organised in a broadly chronological way, but you will also explore key themes and movements that span decades, such as the religious right, anti-feminism, and ‘colour-blind’ conservatism.

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HI5038 -

Early Modern Monarchies: Power and Representation, 1500-1750 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will familiarise you with different aspects of monarchical rule in the early modern period. In particular, it will explore the history of royal courts between c. 1500 and 1750, ranging from England to Poland-Lithuania and covering dynasties such as the Valois and Bourbons, Habsburgs, Tudors and Stuarts, Jagiellonians, Vasas and Wettins. We will look at court intrigue, favourites and faction politics, gender, representation and political agency, ceremony, entertainments, fashion and royal palaces, and diplomacy as means of transnational contacts between royal courts. We will study various European concepts – including kingship and queenship, chivalry, divine right, ritual, and patronage – and consider how these were adapted to suit different styles of monarchies and courts. We will also think about the ways in which European royal houses were a connected network of cultural and political exchange.

You will learn about how early modern royal courts accommodated the needs of different political systems, for example absolute, elective, and parliamentary monarchy, while retaining key characteristics of European royal culture. We will tackle questions about representation in early modern politics and the day-to-day life at these centres of power by applying the most recent approaches from social, political and cultural history, including elements of archaeology, art history, gender history, and history of emotions. The module is organised thematically, but we will think about the degree of change between c. 1500 and 1750, as royal courts adapted to dynastic change and adopted emerging trends, such as the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Enlightenment.

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HI5040 -

Dictatorship and Development: Central America, 1912-1996 (Optional,20 Credits)

The tiny countries of Central America form a narrow land bridge between the continents of North and South America. For centuries a quiet

backwater, the region gained international importance in the twentieth century, thanks to the United States’ growing interest in its ‘backyard’ to

the south.

In this module, you will explore Central America’s tumultuous twentieth century via a variety of primary sources. You will use US military

archives to explore the US occupation of Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, and discover how historians have used oral history to rescue

memories of the El Salvadoran massacre of 1932. In the second half of the course, you will look at how ideas about development intersected

with U.S. informal empire in the region, using CIA and State Department documents to uncover the roots of the civil wars which wracked the

isthmus in the 1980s. Finally, you will learn about the controversy surrounding Rigoberta Menchú’s memoir of the Guatemalan civil war, and

consider how historians navigate conflicting documents and imperfect, contested memories to create credible accounts of past events.

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HI5042 -

The Making and Breaking of Industrial Britain, 1770-1990 (Optional,20 Credits)

By the 1880s, Britain was a major coal exporter and the largest centre of ship building and repair globally. Its manufacturing productivity dubbed it, ‘the workshop of the world’, and its import and export tonnage was colossal. Yet, a century later, by 1980, Britain rapidly entered post-industrialisation and the collapse of the vast infrastructural networks, mines and machinery which had facilitated its rapid nineteenth-century industrialisation. This module makes sense of this historical discontinuity, contextualising the dramatic and fast-paced making and breaking of Britain’s industries from the viewpoint of the environments which underpinned these rapid changes. You will analyse how Britain utilised its fortunate natural resources, notably navigable rivers and voluminous coal deposits, to become a powerful, influential driver of wider industrialisation internationally. You will analyse environmental drivers of industrialisation in comparison to other key drivers such as Empire, demography, urbanisation, social change, technology and politics. You will evaluate in depth how a closer engagement with key elements of the natural environment enabled the British and its wider empire to develop trade and industry successfully and to invent globally game-changing scientific and engineering innovations, notably George Stephenson’s locomotive (1814). Organised thematically, and introducing you to environmental history, the module focuses on one natural resource each week (rivers; coal; precious metals; steam; salt; animals; wood; chemicals; stone; and oil). Consequently, you will understand in depth how Britain’s industrialisation was underpinned by a closer, rather than a remoter, relationship between humans and the environment, thus reconnecting Britain’s industrial might to its natural environments.

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HI5043 -

Rise of the Russian Empire: the Romanovs, 1613-1855 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module examines major themes in the history of tsarist Russia between two major crises. In 1613, the election of the first Romanov tsar, Mikhail, marked the end of Russia’s ‘Time of Troubles’ when the state nearly collapsed. Two and half centuries later, the then mighty Russian Empire was defeated by Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War of 1853-56. In between these crises, Russia’s tsars acquired considerable power over their population and a vast empire that extended across three continents.
This module considers how the Romanov tsars were able to construct and consolidate autocratic power and how they exercised it. First, we will look at how the Romanov dynasty was established under the ‘boy-tsar’ Mikhail and then grew stronger under his successors in the 17th century. Next, we will turn to the major personalities of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great who, in a drive to ‘modernise’, drew upon western European technology and culture to shape and strengthen their empire. Yet ‘westernization’ also inadvertently undermined the stability of tsarism in the long-term, contributing to the growth of challenges to autocracy. Thus began a debate about Russia’s place in Europe which continues today. We will then consider how the successors of Catherine the Great, the so-called ‘enlightened despot’, dealt with her legacy by pursuing conservatism then ‘enlightened’ reform alternatively. Another major theme of the course is how, why and with what consequences, both domestic and international, the tsars were able to build an enormous empire, the largest country in the world. By the end of the eighteenth century, it extended from Poland and Finland in Europe, across Siberia in northern Asia, to Alaska in north America. The power of the Tsars, arguably, had reached its zenith by the early 19th century, when, despite victory over Napoleon in the first decades, cracks began to show in the social and cultural fabric of the empire. New forms of intellectual and political resistance to autocracy gradually emerged and the economic system of serfdom began to appear unfit to compete with the industrializing countries of Europe, demonstrated by Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-56.

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HI5044 -

Power and Freedom: West African History, 1850 to 2010 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module is an introduction to the modern history of West Africa from 1850 to 2010. You will learn about major themes in the history of the region from Senegal to Nigeria, and key debates around how historians and others have represented West Africa. The module considers precolonial West African states, how and why the region was incorporated into European empires, and West Africans’ responses to colonial rule. You will assess how European colonial policies towards West Africa varied across time and space, how Africans challenged colonial rule to win independence in the 1950s and 1960s, and the challenges faced by newly self-governing nations. The module studies the vicissitudes of ‘structural adjustment’ in the region during the 1980s, and democratisation in West Africa from the 1990s.

You will explore the history of West Africa from political, social, and cultural perspectives, building an understanding of how politics affected everyday life, and vice versa. The module has a broadly chronological structure. In some weeks seminars focus on political history, while other weeks address aspects of society and culture including music, dress, and urban life.

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HI5048 -

Witches, Knights and Plague: Medieval Europe on Film (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about how medieval violence is depicted on film (such as Game of Thrones and Gladiator) and how far it accurately reflects or the realities of life in the Middle Ages. It will also explore how twentieth-century governments (including Stalin) have used depictions of medieval warfare for political purposes.
The module moves on to explore how modern films have depicted relations between Muslims and Christians. We will examine movies such as Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to explore how films have stereotyped Muslims to arouse either hostility or sympathy. It will also examine how recent films about the Crusades have dealt with Christian-Muslim relations in the aftermath of 9/11, as well as the ways in which medieval religious intolerance has been represented in films such as The Da Vinci Code and how historians have responded to these depictions.
The final part of the module explores how filmmakers have portrayed gender on film. In particular, women are frequently depicted in highly sexualised ways in films and TV programmes which draw on medieval imagery. We will also explore how modern ideas about medieval women are represented in films about witchcraft (The Black Death and The Seventh Seal), as well as exploring how filmmakers depict medieval women who transcended their gender such as Joan of Arc who led armies into battle (Joan of Arc: The Messenger).

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HI5052 -

History/Film: Using Popular Film as Historical Evidence (Optional,20 Credits)

We know you like films, and we know that you like using them as historical evidence. But are you aware that you need a very particular skill set in order to analyse and write about films properly? If you weren’t but are interested in finding out more, and particularly if you are thinking of using film in your final-year dissertation, then this is the module for you.

This team-taught module invites you to consider a variety of popular film genres, with a specific view towards considering their value to the historian, both as sources about the past AND sources from the past. Key genres that we’ll examine include documentaries, historical dramas, biopics, science fiction, and more. The module tutors will provide you with leading-edge theoretical and methodological approaches through which you will learn how to analyse cinema as a historian.

Learning about the ways in which we might dissect a film will provide you with a range of tools that you can bring to bear on the world around you. For example, you will be able to demonstrate how popular film reflects and attempts to shape popular opinion about key political issues of the time, and how the semiotics of film enable us to move beyond simply responding to film’s plot or its cast.

As this suggests, the module requires you to develop additional analytic skills to those that you would wield when analysing textual documents. It will enable you to move beyond issues pertaining to a film’s factual accuracy (or lack thereof) to consider its emotional truths, its ideological standpoints, the ways in which the filmmakers attempt to convey and disguise political messages, and the way in which audiences are able to absorb, reject, or transform these messages as they see fit. Naturally, it will encourage you to consider the complicated relationship between the past, film, history, Film Studies, and the discipline of History itself. It might even do more…

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HI5054 -

Field Notes: Politics and Policy Making in Place (Optional,20 Credits)

“Field Notes” will take you out of the classroom to immerse you in the major issues facing the contemporary world. The North East is a region alive with controversy and contested spaces which speak to larger challenges facing the nation and the global community in the 21st century. Landscapes throughout the region, from the coast to the Northumberland National Park, Newcastle city centre to the banks of the River Tyne, are inscribed with complex histories which intersect with, and inform, ongoing battles over how to manage, protect, and develop these spaces for a future informed by severe social and economic challenges and the upheaval caused by climate change. You will be taken to four different local sites that are at the centre of these larger environmental-social-political and economic battles and learn how to unravel the complex dynamics that underpin these spaces (from the choices made by policy makers at the local, national, and global level, to the role of communities, activist groups, and other stakeholders in shaping these places). You will be asked to complete a range of assessments from a group presentation to a public poster and site report responding to these field trips. Through the module, therefore, you will be taught how to understand the dynamics of place and policy making and most importantly how to apply historical research to contemporary social issues that impact our world today.

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HI5055 -

Migration Nation: Britain’s History of Immigration, Multiculturalism and Race (Optional,20 Credits)

This module introduces students to a long overview of migration and British history. This stretches back around five centuries, but the main focus is on the last 200 years. It explores how mobility, transnationalism, and ethnic diversity have played a transformative role in shaping British society, culture, economics and politics. The module considers diversity and difference from the early modern period, however primarily focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the significance of the colonial and postcolonial context. Students will examine patterns of mobility and circulation within the British Empire and how conceptions of subjecthood and citizenship shifted over the twentieth century with the advent of the Commonwealth.

The course will also explore the political dimensions of migration: forms of transnational activism and dissent, issues around political marginalisation and representation, refugees and asylum, and racist and anti-immigrant movements. We will consider the ways in which diaspora communities have transformed the social and cultural fabric of areas to, and from, which they have moved. The module explores the evolution of British multiculturalism, ‘race relations’ and the era of interfaith relations.

The module also introduces students to some of the key concepts and debates in the study of migration, such as diaspora, transnationalism, circulation, mobility and hybridity. Students will be encouraged to engage with a wide range of primary and secondary material, foregrounding the voices and struggles of immigrants, interrogating a full range of historical sources, and reflecting on the extent to which official archives and versions of British history represent – or ignore – the stories of minority communities.

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HI5056 -

Al-Andalus to America: Spain and the New World (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will acquire in-depth knowledge about the Spanish late medieval period, with all of its captivating myths and influential realities. You will become critically familiar with exciting passages of universal history, including the end of the Reconquest (with the rise of the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews and Muslims), the discovery of America, often referred to as an “encounter” of civilisations, and the development of the modern world from an Iberian perspective. You will explore the concepts of religious persecution and clash of civilisations, establishing the links between the political role of the Catholic Church and the development of a “new” continent in America from 1492. Moreover, you will gain an expert understanding of coexistence and conflict between Muslims, Jews and Christians in Spain, including the transformational cultural legacies that Europe and the West owe to Al-Andalus and Sefarad (Muslim and Jewish Spain). You will also gain a nuanced understanding of imperial dynamics between indigenous civilisations, including the Inca and the Azteca, and European settlers in the New World. You will learn about Spain’s Christian and Imperial mandates by using a wide range of translated primary sources, which will include, amongst many others, the Lead Books of Granada, Hernán Cortés’s Letters from Mexico, and Álvar Núnez’s account of his ten years journey from Florida to California, Castaways. You will also be able to evaluate the role of propaganda, from a comparative history perspective, when assessing the key events that took place before and after 1492, and how these shaped the course of modern history.

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HI5057 -

People Power before Democracy: The United Kingdom, 1790-1914 (Optional,20 Credits)

How did ordinary people make their voices heard before democracy? In this module you will learn how to answer this question through examining the UK’s ‘long’ nineteenth century (roughly 1790-1914). This was a period in which few men and no women could vote and political institutions were dominated by an aristocratic elite. Yet, this era was characterised by ‘people power’. Mighty movements such as anti-slavery and women’s suffrage mobilised massive numbers of people to make powerful demands for political change. The module explores this topic, firstly through studies of specific movements, such as Chartism and popular radicalism, before providing a broader thematic focus on different types of political practices and activities that were used by ordinary people, such as petitions or meetings and demonstrations. During the course of the module you will learn about the links between these movements and practices and important historical processes such as the development of democracy in the modern UK. During the module you will engage with a variety of historical debates, such as why was there no revolution in the UK?; and with a wide selection of primary sources, including newspapers, official records, and visual images.

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IR5010 -

Foreign Policy Analysis (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn about the most significant issues and challenges of our times in the domain of foreign policy. While grounded in IR theory, you will be introduced to foreign policy analysis (FPA)-specific frameworks and levels of analysis such as to systems of governance, decision making structures and models, leadership analysis, the role of the media, public opinion and special interest groups. Empirically, you will learn about the foreign policy of key actors in the international system towards a region or set of issues such as, for example, US and China foreign policy.

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ML5001 -

Unilang - Languages for all - Level 5 Placeholder (Optional,20 Credits)

The 20-credit yearlong Unilang modules (stages 1 – 5 depending on language) aim to encourage a positive attitude to language learning and to develop and practise the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing introducing the basic/increasingly complex grammatical structures and vocabulary of the spoken and written language (depending on stage) and developing your ability to respond appropriately in the foreign language in spoken and written form in simple and increasingly complex everyday situations.

These modules also introduce you to the country and the culture of the country. In doing this, Unilang modules are intended to encourage and support international mobility; to enhance employability at home and abroad; to improve communication skills in the foreign language as well as English; to improve cultural awareness and, at the higher stages, to encourage access to foreign sources.

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MP5022 -

Cultural Identities on Screen (Optional,20 Credits)

The module will focus on the televisual representation and articulation of cultural identities in Britain and the US. We will look at how gender, ethnicity, national and regional identities are constructed through an examination of different genres and areas of screen media, such as drama, comedy and current affairs. We will explore issues such as class, gender and racial stereotypes, visibility of minority groups and integration. Throughout the course we will also consider the function of television, considering what its role might be in the construction of cultural identities.

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YC5001 -

Academic Language Skills for Humanities and Social Sciences (Core – for International and EU students only,0 Credits)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

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AD5009 -

Humanities Work Placement Year (Optional,120 Credits)

The Work Placement Year module is a 120 credit year-long module available on degree courses which include a work placement year, taken as an additional year of study at level 5 and before level 6 (the length of the placement(s) will be determined by your programme but it can be no less than 30 weeks. You will undertake a guided work placement at a host organisation. This is a Pass/Fail module and so does not contribute to classification. When taken and passed, however, the Placement Year is recognised in your transcript as a 120 credit Work Placement Module and on your degree certificate in the format – “Degree title (with Work Placement Year)”. The learning and teaching on your placement will be recorded in the work placement agreement signed by the placement provider, the student, and the University.

Note: Subject to placement clearance; this is a competitive process and a place on the module cannot be guaranteed.

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AD5010 -

Humanities Study Abroad Year (Optional,120 Credits)

The Study Abroad Year module is a full year 120 credit module which is available on degree courses which include a study abroad year which is taken as an additional year of study at level 5 and before level 6. You will undertake a year abroad at a partner university equivalent to 120 UK credits. This gives you access to modules from your discipline taught in a different learning culture and so broadens your overall experience of learning. The course of study abroad will be dependent on the partner and will be recorded for an individual student on the learning agreement signed by the host University, the student, and the home University (Northumbria). Your study abroad year will be assessed on a pass/fail basis. It will not count towards your final degree classification but, if you pass, it is recognised in your transcript as a 120 credit Study Abroad Module and on your degree certificate in the format – “Degree title (with Study Abroad Year)”.

Note: Subject to placement clearance; this is a competitive process and a place on the module cannot be guaranteed.

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AM6005 -

Red, White and Green: The American Environment Through Time (Core,20 Credits)

The US is a paradox when it comes to nature: it is both the country that invented the national park concept and the biggest carbon dioxide emitter historically; it was the first country to celebrate Earth Day in 1970, but it is also where the hyper consumerist lifestyle first emerged; it is the birthplace of some of the oldest and most important environmental NGOs and of climate denial. How can we make sense of the US and its relationship to nature? Are Americans doomed to destroy the natural wonders of their nation? Can we envision a red, white and green nation that would put science and technology at the service of sustainability and environmental justice?

The module will answer these questions by examining the US’ complicated relationship to nature chronologically. In doing so, we will re-examine and challenge conventional narratives of US history by integrating the role of nature as a historical actor in its own right. Examples of themes covered include: nature and conquest; Native American environments; nature and technology; the wilderness myth; animals in US history; environmental disasters; urban nature; the rise of environmentalism; environmental justice and environmental racism; waste and pollution; toxicities, etc.

The module will approach these themes using the tools of the environmental humanities. Combining historical, visual and literary analysis with insights from ecology and other ‘hard’ sciences, we will achieve a thorough understanding of environmental phenomena in their full complexity.

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EL6004 -

Vamps and Virgins: Gothic Sexualities (Optional,20 Credits)

From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel (1816) to Alan Ball’s True Blood (2008-), this module invites you to explore the dark, shadowy world of the Gothic in relation to a diverse range of literary texts and modern media. Combining the study of familiar canonical fictions with new and challenging material, we will train our focus on the enigmatic figure of the vampire, examining its various transitions and developments through the lens of critical and cultural theory.

Through an analysis of the Gothic, the module aims to develop your critical thinking, as well as your existing knowledge of literature, film, and television dating from 1816 to the present day. In doing so, it will encourage you to reflect on and interrogate the complex ways in which Gothic texts engage with, and intervene in, broader cultural debates about gender and sexuality.

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EL6042 -

Postwar US Writing (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will enhance your understanding of postwar American literary culture in its broader social, political, and
economic contexts. Mid-century America was a time of profound contradictions: while US citizens lived under the shadow the bomb, many experienced unprecedented economic prosperity and access to new material comforts. We will explore how national paranoia
about the spread of communism and the nuclear arms race sat alongside – and fed into – the postwar image of the American ‘good life’, an image of suburban conformity underpinned by the growth of advertising and consumer culture. We will consider how postwar fiction and poetry challenges this demand for conformity in both content and form: through its complex representations of the American cold war experience and its innovative narrative and poetic strategies. The texts on this module offer insights into postwar attitudes towards a diverse range of topics, including national and international politics, work, leisure, and domesticity, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity.

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HI6004 -

The African American Freedom Struggle Since 1945 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this seminar-based module you will study the roots, trajectory, and legacies of the African American Freedom Struggle since 1945. Although the primary focus will be on the movement for racial justice in the US South between roughly 1954 and 1968, that history will be placed in longer chronological and broader national and international contexts. More specifically you will study the grass-roots activities of African Americans engaged in various forms of resistance and protest alongside the histories of the major civil rights groups – the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). You will interrogate their tactics, examine their often fraught relationships with each other, and assess their achievements and failures in the face of widespread resistance to racial change. You will examine the contributions of the extraordinary ordinary people at the heart of the struggle, as well as those of nationally prominent leaders such as Martin Luther King. In this module you will also analyse the relationship between the civil rights movement and the federal government, address the role of the media and popular culture in shaping both the history and popular understandings of the post-war Freedom Struggle, and examine the international coordinates and impact of the struggles.

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HI6007 -

Civil War and Reconstruction (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn about the causes, events, and results of the U.S. Civil War, a war which took over 620,000 lives; the bloodiest in American history. The Civil War and its aftermath are considered the dividing line between early and modern US history. The War ended the South’s dominance of American politics. It also led to three major constitutional amendments which ended slavery, defined American citizenship, and provided for African American votes respectively which still have implications in American life in the 21st century. The course begins in 1850 by looking at American sectionalism and how and why that caused the founding of the Republican party and the eventual secession of eleven southern states. It then examines the military aspects of the war and explores its social, political, economic, and diplomatic effects. The end of the term will be spent on the political and social aspects of the post-War period known as ‘Reconstruction.’ It will explain how American national identity became redefined during this tumultuous time, especially in popular memory around public commemorations, art, literature and film. You will also analyse the controversial historiography of this period throughout the semester.

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HI6010 -

Women, Crime and Subversion in Early Modern Europe (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn how different scholars have conceptualised and written about women, crime and subversion from 1400 to 1800. You will assess and analyse why and how tensions in the early modern period meant that authorities across Europe directed their attention upon women in specific ways. The influence of the Protestant reformation is examined in terms of its impact upon female behaviour. Female criminality and subversive behaviour will be examined through a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, including feminist and gender theories. Key concepts at the fore of this module include witchcraft, petty treason, infanticide, female piracy, prostitution, adultery and fornication, lesbianism, the crime of cross-dressing, and women’s strategies in European court systems. You will move beyond areas classified as criminal to behaviour considered as subversive and deviant, such as domestic disorder. You will utilize a wide range of primary sources including court records, the Old Bailey legal records, assize court records and female testimonies from across Europe which will equip you to think critically about academic literature, primary sources and historical interpretation.

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HI6022 -

Joint Honours Dissertation (Optional,40 Credits)

The dissertation gives you the opportunity to work on a sustained piece of research of your own (guided) choice and to present that research in an organised and coherent form in a major piece of writing. The module will teach you how to function as an independent researcher, learner and writer. The dissertation represents the culmination of your studies as a Joint Honours student. You will apply the skills developed in your earlier studies to a discrete body of primary sources, working upon a clearly defined topic. In designing and implementing your research project, you will draw on insights and approaches from both of the disciplines that from part of your degree. The dissertation will develop your research skills and allow you to work independently, drawing on the advice and guidance of a designated supervisor.

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HI6025 -

Northern Ireland: The 'Troubles' and the Search for Peace (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn about the origins, evolution and dynamics of one of Europe’s most recent – and deadly – intra-state conflicts. The ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, 1968-98, was marked by their persistence and seeming intractability. With the paramilitary ceasefires in the 1990s, a new era opened; but difficulties remain in moving from a mere absence of violence to a genuine peace. You will examine the dynamics of violence and its impact on the politics and culture of Northern Ireland over a fifty year period, and the significant challenges posed to peace since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

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HI6027 -

Barricades and Boulevards: Revolution, Culture, and Urban Life in Nineteenth-century Paris (Optional,20 Credits)

This module examines the political, social and cultural history of Paris between 1815 and 1900. You will study different aspects of the history of nineteenth-century Paris – revolution, urban development, popular culture, and artistic life – through a range of primary sources, including contemporary artistic and literary representations of the city. You will assess and analyse the relationship between the city of Paris and political change during this period, with a particular focus on urban insurrection and revolution. You will also explore artistic movements such as Romanticism and Impressionism, as well as the rise of leisure and consumer culture and the urban development of the city, especially during the Second Empire (1852-1870). Throughout the module, you will investigate wider historical debates about urbanisation and the growth of the nineteenth-century European city. In looking at the history of nineteenth-century Paris – the ‘capital of the nineteenth century’, as the German theorist Walter Benjamin described it – from a range of perspectives, this module will enhance your knowledge and understanding of cultural and social approaches to history, and develop your ability to use interdisciplinary methodologies in your study of the past.

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HI6031 -

Recording the Past: Making Your Own History Documentary (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will appeal to anyone interested in telling stories. It will help you think about how your existing historical skills can be applied beyond university, while equipping you with experience of project management, team building, and working with a range of non-university stakeholders. This module gives students the opportunity to make their own short audio documentary. Students pitch, script, record, and edit their own documentaries using audio equipment and free, open-source, cross-platform audio software. Students will be given a broad theme (such as the 1970s and the Northeast of England) and will then generate a proposal and ‘pitch’ this to the class. Following selection, groups will then work on developing a script and identifying interviewees. Teams will produce their documentaries by dividing up the production responsibilities, so that students gain not only experience of teamwork but also of making a specific contribution to the project. Across the semester, the class will progress through the stages of pre- and post-production together week-by-week. Portable recording equipment will be made available and students will be (i) instructed on using industry-standard audio equipment; (ii) classes on ethics and oral history techniques; (ii) training on how to use editing software. At the same time, the class will both engage with relevant literature and listen to a range of audio documentary in order to better understand creative and production issues. The emphasis in this module will be both on the finished documentary but also on the process involved and the skills acquired along the way.

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HI6032 -

Men of War: Masculinities and Warfare in Britain 1914 -1945 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, you will explore the British male experiences of the First and Second World Wars, primarily through the lens of gender and masculinities. The module will examine the male experience in the broadest sense, looking not only at the experience of training, fighting and dying for Britain but also the experiences of various types of civilian men including those excluded from military service, civilian male workers and civil defence volunteers. The module will also examine the after effects of warfare by considering the experiences of those men who returned from war mentally and physically damaged as well as exploring the cultural legacies of the two world wars in Britain. This is a cutting-edge area of historical research. Therefore, you will be engaging with a growing and developing set of historical debates and ideas. Moreover, you will deal with a wide variety of primary materials including state propaganda, film, radio broadcasts, oral testimony, diaries, memoirs and archival material. This will equip you to think critically about both historiography and primary sources.

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HI6037 -

Environmental disaster in modern Britain (Optional,20 Credits)

Sometimes it can seem that concern about climate change and the broader environmental crisis is a recent phenomenon whose effects are largely felt in other parts of the world. This module challenges these assumptions. You will learn about the origins of these concerns in their British context through five environmental disasters that shaped Britain after the Second World War. They are the devastating east coast floods of 1953, the collapse of the spoil heap onto a school at Aberfan in Wales in 1966, the wrecking of the Torrey Canyon, an oil tanker, off the Cornish coast in 1967, the near-extinction of birds of prey as a consequence chemical pesticides in the 1950s and 60s, and the hurricane that caused widespread destruction to woods and forests in 1987. You will spend two weeks on each of these case studies. The first week will focus on the event itself and its human and non-human causes and costs. The second week will focus on the event’s long-term political, social, and cultural consequences. Among the questions you’ll consider are: How did public opinion and the media respond to these disasters? What short and long-term effects did they have on government policy? In what ways did these disasters catalyse the development of the modern environmental movement? How has our understanding of what constitutes a natural disaster changed over time? You will learn about the historical development of theories of climate change and you will be able to contextualise historically the environmental crisis that is shaping political culture today and develop a greater understanding of why it is so difficult to agree on possible solutions.

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HI6041 -

Russia Between Democracy and Dictatorship: Gorbachev to Putin, 1985-2008 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module explores a tumultuous period in Russian history when the pendulum swung from dictatorship towards increasing democracy and back again. Relatively freer politics and loosening of controls over the media were accompanied by economic dislocation and social instability under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, while conversely, the Putin era saw improved economic performance, stability and some restoration of order alongside the return of a creeping authoritarianism in politics and tighter censorship. Students will investigate why the Soviet regime, which ten years previously had seemed destined to last indefinitely, was so rapidly undermined. We will examine the political struggle that accompanied perestroika, as well as how official Soviet ideology unravelled under the impact of glasnost’ and the opening of public debate. The module considers Gorbachev’s government’s attempt to find economic solutions to stagnation and the disastrous effects of the collapse of faith in the command economy. Also, particular attention is paid to the role that nationalist movements in the Baltic, Ukraine, Transcaucasia and Central Asia played in tearing the Soviet system apart. The module then turns to Russia’s turbulent post-Soviet transition, the ‘Wild Years’, a dangerous and exciting period where, after the USSR legally ceased to exist on 31 December 1991, the new state, the Russian Federation, set off on the road to democracy and a market economy without any clear conception of how to complete such a transformation in the world’s largest country. As well as looking at Russia’s new political system, we will examine the economic reforms introduced as the country underwent ‘shock therapy’ to create a market economy, involving mass privatization, financial crisis, the rise of oligarchs. We will consider the devastating social impact of these policies, as life expectancy plummeted, birth rates collapsed and crime exploded. Students will assess how in these conditions Vladimir Putin, assumed power and explore how his presidency saw economic upswing and improvement in living standards but also a creeping authoritarianism in politics and media controls. Finally, we will investigate Putin’s cultivation of an aggressive, socially conservative Russian nationalism which grew from the shame and international humiliation derived from the catastrophic transition of the former superpower.

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HI6042 -

How to Kill a King: Monarchies in Crisis, 1547-1689 (Optional,20 Credits)

Being an early modern king could be dangerous. Over the course of the period, monarchs were executed, assassinated, and deposed. While Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I lost their heads, boy-king Louis XIV pretended to be asleep as the angry Parisian mob entered his bedroom during the Fronde and James I narrowly escaped being blown up by the Gunpowder Plot. Even if not resolved in loss of life or deposition, monarchical crises that gripped early modern Europe posed a significant challenge to royal authority and legitimacy. These moments of crisis were connected to the changing nature of royal power, redefined in clashes between monarchs and their subjects exacerbated by the Reformation, dynastic politics, the changing relationship between monarchs and nobles, the emerging concept of the state and new ideas about how it should be governed. Over the course of this module you will examine monarchical crises through case studies including the executions of Jane Grey and Mary Stuart, assassinations of Henri III and Henri IV, the English Civil War and Glorious Revolution, the Fronde, and the Defenestration of Prague and deposition of the Winter King, Frederick V. We will consider the causes, outcomes, and representations of these crises through a variety of sources, including pamphlets, chronicles, letters, and images. We will also consider the representation of these events in the modern media such as film, television, and fiction writing.

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HI6047 -

Dissertation with Public History (Optional,40 Credits)

In this module, you will be provided with the skills to complete a written dissertation and a public-facing output on a topic that you will agree with your supervisors. The dissertation with public history represents an opportunity to apply the skills you have acquired at earlier levels, as well as a chance to develop new skills, both theoretical and practical, associated with public history. In Semester One you will produce the written piece of work. This written piece, which can take the form of a ‘short dissertation’ or ‘extended essay’, may be an analysis of a discrete body of primary sources, a discussion of historiographical controversy, or an intervention in a current debate about the public understanding of the past. In Semester Two you will work with your supervisors to produce a public output (the ‘knowledge exchange’ component), such as a digital exhibition or public history podcast, based on your research for the short dissertation/extended essay. The knowledge exchange aspect may include work with an external partner. The ‘Dissertation with public history’ is an exercise in research and public engagement and is intended to develop your research and communication skills, as well as your ability to work independently. Topics will be supervised by two appropriate tutors, one with subject-specific knowledge, the second with knowledge exchange experience.

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HI6048 -

From the Campus to the Streets: Student Activism and Youth Movements since 1900 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, we will consider how young people have responded to, and in some cases shaped, major episodes and developments in modern and contemporary history. In examining youth action, we will cover a variety of movements and campaigns. For example, we will discuss the role of communist and fascist youth organisations in the 1920s and 1930s as well as the involvement of students in anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles. Moreover, we will investigate youth politics in the Cold War, the impact of student protests in the 1960s as well as young people’s efforts to address issues such as gender equality or the fate of the environment.

The scope of the module is international, with examples that cover cases from Europe (France, Germany, Russia), Africa (Ghana, South Africa), Asia (China, Japan) and the Americas (Brazil, Mexico, the United States). We will pay particular attention to global aspirations and connections, as we will trace how young activists sought to build ties across national borders. Such efforts will also allow us to consider how various movements imagined and pursued the quest for a different world and a better future.

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HI6049 -

Modern India: Making the World’s Biggest Democracy (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn how the world’s biggest democracy came into being, starting with the successful struggle for independence and going up to the 21st century. You will develop a broad understanding of India’s postcolonial politics, culture, economy and society. Using a diverse range of materials, you will analyse how the British Empire’s ‘Jewel in the Crown’ established itself as a postcolonial democratic republic amidst numerous obstacles, tensions and conflicts.

The first half of the module introduces you to the contemporary history of India through five episodes, which help us to understand key issues like decolonisation, secularism, corruption and liberalisation. The second half of the module considers six themes, exploring how these tell us different things about India in the second-half of the 20th century. Chronologically, the module begins with anti-colonial nationalism of Mahatma Gandhi and others, from around the 1930s onwards. The module then covers almost the entire period of independent India, from the creation of the republic and partition of the subcontinent in 1947, right up to 2019 – the year in which the current Hindu nationalist BJP government won a second consecutive landslide victory, marking for many the demise of India as a secular, multicultural democracy.

The second half of the module covers six major themes: Gender, Caste, Migration, Conflict, Communalism, and Environment. Exploring the recent history of India through these different lenses provides new angles for understanding the ‘world’s largest democracy’ from a range of diverse perspectives.

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HI6050 -

From Grand Tours to Dirty Weekends: Travellers and Tourists in Britain, Ireland and Beyond (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will discover how the histories of travel and tourism are deeply connected to the making of modern Britain and Ireland. You will explore the history of tourism from its eighteenth-century origins, when seaside towns and spas welcomed their first visitors and British and Irish aristocrats embarked on Grand Tours of Europe. You will learn how British and Irish landscapes were made iconic by Romantic writers, and how the development of steamships, railways, roads, bicycles, and motor travel revolutionised the way in which journeys were experienced and narrated.

You will discover how the royal tourism of Queen Victoria and her descendants helped strengthen the political union of the United Kingdom, and how the tourism industry forged cross-border links, promoted cooperation, and encouraged dialogue between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State after the Partition of Ireland in 1921. You will also learn how tourism was connected to the expansion of the British Empire, as travellers on Thomas Cook’s tours followed missionaries, traders, and empire builders to the Middle East, Africa, and India. You will consider how Black British travellers have experienced city space and the countryside in different ways to their white counterparts, and the photography of Ingrid Pollard will prompt you to think about the relationship between race and national identity in Britain today.

You will learn about key concepts and debates in the history of tourism, such as mobility, authenticity, landscape and place, gender, post-colonialism, the interaction of ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’, and the growing importance of travel as part of individual and national identity. You will engage with a wide variety of primary source material, from personal travel accounts, guidebooks, and timetables to the rich visual and material culture of postcards, illustrations, paintings, photographs, and poster artwork.

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IR6005 -

Media Power and Propaganda (Optional,20 Credits)

Most people find out about politics, and what is going on in the wider world, through the media. It is therefore critical to understand how the media functions in contemporary society. This module focuses upon the debate about the role of the media in liberal democracies: is it an independent check on the exercise of power or an instrument by which the powerful manipulate the masses? What is the impact of the media upon individuals: does it inform us or brainwash us? How are the Internet and other new technologies affecting individual’s ability to access alternative sources of information to the established media? What implications do these new media have for states that seek to direct, if not control, the public’s access to information? What role, if any, should propaganda play in a liberal democracy? Using concepts, such as power, and theories of media effects, media performance and interpersonal communication, students will be encouraged to engage with these fundamental questions.

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MI6005 -

Popular Music on Film and Television (Optional,20 Credits)

This module is concerned with popular music culture and its relationship to film, an area much neglected in academic film studies, television studies and popular music studies. As such, it seeks to address this absence by looking at a number of key junctures where popular music culture, the cinema and television inter-relate, exploring debates about gender representation, authorship, genre and music in performance, as well as how the films studied relate to context of their production and reception. The module, therefore, covers topics such as the following in a largely chronological fashion. An indicative syllabus is as follows:
1. Early moments: The significance of the early Elvis Films: King Creole
2. Punk rock on film: The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle
3. The revisionist musical: Von Trier, Lhurmann et al
4. Popular Music and national identity: The Commitments
5. Popular Music and ‘Race’ representation: 8 Mile
6. Gender play: Velvet Goldmine, In Bed with Madonna
7. The popular music / rock documentary
8. Dance and the male body: Saturday Night Fever
9. The concert film" from Wadleigh's Woodstock to Godard's One plus One.
10. Critical approaches to music video: Corbijn, Cunningham et al.
11. Nostalgia and the popular musical biopic: Control

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MI6007 -

Cult Film and Television (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn to understand how the term ‘cult’ has been applied to film and television programmes in different ways, and how the concept has developed across history. The module will enable you to critically examine the ways that cult has been theorised both in relation to films and television programmes, and some of the key differences between cult television and cult film. You will understand how cult can be applied to both films, the reception of films, as well as how it has increasingly infiltrated marketing discourses. Case studies on the module include midnight movies, authorship and cult, fandom, telefantasy, censorship and controversy, exploitation cinema and global cult cinema.

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MI6022 -

The Modern Horror Film (Optional,20 Credits)

The modern period in horror cinema is generally seen as beginning in 1968 with the release of Night of the Living Dead. This module explores the wide range of horror films produced since that date, primarily in the US but also considering the development and influence of horror film production in Italy, Japan and the UK. Through this exploration, the module will identify key themes, formats and cycles, and engages with the relation of the horror genre to changes in the film industry and to broader social and historical change. It also explores the aesthetic innovations and challenges offered by a range of forms of horror, and the creative ways in which the genre has experimented with film form and style. In taking the module, you will acquire an understanding of the critical and cultural issues raised by this important area of American and global culture and you will develop your own critical and analytic insights into a range of iconic horror films produced between 1968 and the present.

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MP6029 -

Cinema and Society (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, you will critically examine the relationship between US filmic institutions (films and industrial bodies – hereafter “cinema”) and different social contexts, including, for example: changes to the Hollywood Studio System (and the birthing of the “New Hollywood”), cinema’s responses to war and global trauma, and cinema’s engagement with issues surrounding race, gender and sexuality. Taught through lectures, demonstrations (film screenings) and student-led seminars, the course explores many of the ways cinema has engaged with key societal concerns.

You will be required to read and reflect on specific theoretical and empirical academic work by leading scholars and commentators and, using your analytical and interpretive skills, relate this work to the issues raised in class and by the accompanying film screenings. The module is assessed by a written essay or equivalent video essay, which is designed to test your knowledge of film history and industry (one of the world's major mass communications industries), to evidence a sophisticated understanding of the issues under scrutiny, and your ability to work to a deadline. Ultimately, the module asks you to consider: What is the significance of studying cinema as a mass communications industry, an outlet for personal expression, and as a political tool? What can cinema tells us about history? What can cinema tell us about ourselves?

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YC5001 -

Academic Language Skills for Humanities and Social Sciences (Core – for International and EU students only,0 Credits)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

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Modules

Module information is indicative and is reviewed annually therefore may be subject to change. Applicants will be informed if there are any changes.

AM4001 -

Introduction to American Studies (Core,20 Credits)

This module offers a practical and historical introduction to American Studies as a distinct, multifaceted, and evolving discipline, while also allowing you to acquire and practice key learning, research, and communication skills which will be of use throughout your university career and beyond. The module is content driven, with readings and themes drawn from across the entire range of American history, literature, politics, and popular culture, but particular emphasis will be placed on helping you to understand and master the basic tools and protocols of academic scholarship, thereby helping you to make the transition from school to university level work.
The skills which this module will help you to develop will include finding, reading and evaluating various kinds of primary and secondary sources; understanding the ways in which scholarship advances through constructive criticism and debate; correct referencing; finding an effective academic writing style; making oral presentations; and designing, researching and writing an independent research project.

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HI4003 -

The Making of Contemporary Europe (Core,20 Credits)

This module will enable you to learn about the emergence of contemporary Europe by surveying the continent’s history from the 18th century to the present. Its thematic overview of the history of Europe and its relationship with the non-European world, will provide you with an introductory knowledge and understanding of global developments. It covers key issues in the social, economic and political transformation of Europe during this period, dwelling on events in Britain and Europe where necessary, but always maintaining an international perspective. You will be encouraged to think in terms of European development as a whole, and not in terms of discrete national histories, and to make comparisons between different parts of the continent, often on a regional rather than a national basis. Many of the important events which are often seen to be rooted in a particular national considerations are nevertheless are also part of broader contexts which transcend national boundaries. For example, the collapse of the old aristocratic order, profound long-term upheavals in the international economy, the spread of communist ideology, and the rise of fascism, to name but a few.

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HI4005 -

From Sea to Shining Sea: US History from 1776 to 2008 (Core,20 Credits)

This module will provide you with an overview of the social, political and cultural development of the United States from revolutionary period to the present day. Within a broad chronological framework, this module will introduce you to key themes within modern American history: race, gender, ethnicity, class, regionalism, the media, and foreign policy. Topics include the American Constitution, Jacksonian America, the antebellum and Civil War period, Reconstruction, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Cold War. You will have the opportunity to consider the major controversies in American history, key concepts, and the nation’s transformation from a colony to a superpower.

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HI4006 -

Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe 1200-1720 (Core,20 Credits)

You will be introduced to the history of late medieval and early modern Europe from 1200 to 1720, and to a variety of topics including the interaction between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, the growing power of the monarchies of England, France, and Spain, and the development of print culture. You will engage with broader themes in medieval and early modern history, such as rural and urban society, the economy, religion, gender, culture, warfare and state formation, and voyages of discovery, and follow these comparatively across period and place. You will also learn about the different types of source material used by historians of this period of European history, such as medieval court records, state documents, popular literature, and visual images.

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HI4007 -

Making History (Core,20 Credits)

History is not only characterised by knowledge and understanding of past developments, but also by a broad range of skills and methods that are directly applicable to academic research. Within this wider context, this module will give you a firm grounding in the skills and methods needed for the study of history, introducing you to a range of source materials from a broad chronological spectrum. In so doing, the module explores traditions in criticism and explains the ways in which sources can be read and utilised. The module is structured along five ‘core skills’ blocks (Writing History, Handling Sources, Approaches to History, Researching & Interpreting History, and Feedback and Careers) which progress logically from each other and provide students with ample opportunities to engage with how historians make history. The first block introduces you to how to study and write history through an analysis of the historian’s key skills. The block also develops skills in three areas: (1) writing history; (2) reading history (3) researching history. The second block examines key approaches to historical sources. In addition to allowing you to demonstrate the skills gained in block one, the block concentrates on how to find primary sources, how to read them, and how to deploy them in written work. Block three considers key conceptual approaches to the past, including race, class and gender. Block four draws the skills you have learnt in a concentrated study of a single secondary source book. . The final block introduces you to careers in and beyond History, and asks you to reflect on your progress over the year. You will develop a critical capacity to scrutinize sources and interpretations of the past.

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HI4009 -

Cultures, Empires and Ideas: Global Histories of Power and Ideology (Core,20 Credits)

This module deals with major historical concepts and questions, and it allows you to study how these took (or changed) shape in different periods and parts of the world. In Semester 1, the emphasis is on the themes of empire and civilisation. You will investigate features that may have been shared by different empires and you will consider how these sought to rule over diverse populations. Empires often claimed to be acting as ‘civilising’ forces and the module allows you to question imperial ideologies of this kind. Moreover, you consider cultural interactions, from coexistence and mutual exchange to violence and oppression.

In Semester 2, you will analyse and discuss a range of primary texts that will introduce you to particular ideas, their historical contexts and significance. You will encounter key works in the history of political thought and will thus get to analyse arguments about the meaning of the state, the nature of government and the necessity for political change. In this context, you will consider challenges to existing hierarchies and power relations, including those linked to empire, as well as the assumptions that underpinned such inequalities.

The module enables you to study historical phenomena and ideas from the ancient world to the present day. Its overall approach is global, with a geographical scope that encompasses Europe, the USA, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Arab World and China.

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YC5001 -

Academic Language Skills for Humanities and Social Sciences (Core – for International and EU students only,0 Credits)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

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AD5012 -

Humanities Study Abroad (40 credit) (Optional,40 Credits)

The Study Abroad module is a semester based 40 credit module which is available on degree courses which facilitate study abroad within the programme. You will undertake a semester of study abroadat an approved partner University elsewhere. This gives you access to modules from your discipline taught in a different learning culture and so broadens your overall experience of learning. The course of study abroad will be constructed to meet the learning outcomes for the programme for the semester in question, dependent on suitable modules from the partner and will be recorded for an individual student on the learning agreement signed by the host University, the student, and the home University (Northumbria). The module will be assessed by conversion of graded marks from the host University.

Learning outcomes on the year-long modules on which the student is unable to attend the home institution must be met at the host institution, and marks from the host are incorporated into the modules as part of the overall assessment.

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AM5002 -

American Studies Extended Essay (Optional,20 Credits)

The American Studies Extended Essay is designed as an opportunity for you to apply and build on the skills you have acquired in Level Four core modules and prepare yourself for the demands of the American Studies Dissertation in Level Six. It is an exercise in independent research and is intended to be a piece of work that utilises an interdisciplinary approach to a selection of primary and secondary sources. Extended Essay topics will be developed in conjunction with an appropriate subject specialist.

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AM5002 -

American Studies Extended Essay (Core,20 Credits)

The American Studies Extended Essay is designed as an opportunity for you to apply and build on the skills you have acquired in Level Four core modules and prepare yourself for the demands of the American Studies Dissertation in Level Six. It is an exercise in independent research and is intended to be a piece of work that utilises an interdisciplinary approach to a selection of primary and secondary sources. Extended Essay topics will be developed in conjunction with an appropriate subject specialist.

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HI5004 -

Affluence and Anxiety: The US from 1920 to 1960 (Optional,20 Credits)

Historians and other researchers have often used the terms of ‘affluence’ and ‘anxiety’ to describe US history and culture from 1920 to 1960. According to a traditional narrative, Americans enjoyed unprecedented ‘affluence’ in the 1920s and in the postwar period, while experiencing great ‘anxiety’ in the context of the Cold War. While useful, these narratives do not fully account for the complexity of this period. In this module, we will ask questions such as: Who took advantage of affluence (pre- and post-WW2)? Who was excluded from it and how? How did American conceptions of affluence fundamentally shape our current climate crisis? Beyond Cold War anxieties, what were Americans, in their diversity, worried about? How did foreign policy anxieties reveal themselves at home? And how did racial and gender anxieties shape US politics and culture?

With these questions in mind, we will assess and analyse major developments and events of the period, including, but not limited to: the roaring 1920s, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the postwar “economic miracle,” the suburban boom, and the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. By narrowing our focus on four crucial decades of the 20th century, we will be able to look at these events from various angles. In accordance with recent developments in the field, we will pay particular attention to historiographical interpretations that emphasize race, gender, sexuality, and class, as well as the environment. This will mean, for instance, that you will not only learn about the anti-communist ‘Red Scare’ of the 1950s, but also about the lesser known ‘Lavender Scare’ that targeted gay men and women working for the US government. Similarly, we will study Rosa Parks’ efforts to desegregate the buses in 1950s Birmingham, but we will also pay attention to ordinary actors of the Civil Rights Movement, such as the African-American youths who desegregated swimming pools and amusement parks.

Primary and secondary source readings, along with classroom activities, will help you to critically engage this key era of American development and develop the interpretive skills of a historian.

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HI5005 -

America in the 1960s (Core,20 Credits)

This module offers you the opportunity to study the domestic social, cultural, political, and economic history of the United States during the “long 1960s” (roughly 1956-1974). Interdisciplinary in approach the module allows you to examine a range of secondary and primary sources – including television, literature, music, film and visual culture – that illuminate the history and culture of the US during this period. The module also encourages you to consider the perils and advantages of dealing with the 1960s as a discrete historical period, involves you in some of the most important scholarly debates in the field, and asks you to consider how the decade has been remembered and misremembered in popular consciousness by exploring later cultural representations and political uses of the 1960s. Key topics include the Cold War and Vietnam; consumerism; the civil rights and black power movements; national and local politics; science, technology and the environment; youth culture; gender and sexuality; identity politics; regionalism; the New Left and the Counterculture; conservatism and the New Right; mass media and popular music.

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HI5009 -

Your Graduate Future (Optional,20 Credits)

This module aims to ensure that you will be equipped with employability-related skills appropriate to graduates of History and associated degrees. The module adapts to your interests, whether you choose to pursue postgraduate study, enter the job market seeking graduate level employment, or establish your own enterprise. One of the purposes of Your Graduate Future is to raise your awareness of the wide range of possibilities, and to equip you with the knowledge, the skills and the experiences that may enable you to respond effectively to future opportunities. This module now includes a “Standard Pathway” and a “Law Pathway”, delivered in collaboration with Northumbria School of Law. For the Standard Pathway, in semester 1 you will attend lectures and participate in seminars that will present the intricacies of contemporary job seeking in different sectors. These will include guest lectures. You will then work with a group of your peers on an outward-looking project that will enable you to display your specific skills, to establish and nurture internal and external contacts, and to express your interests in a public outcome of your choice. In semester 2, you will develop your CV and further explore your evolving skillsets by means of engaging on your choice of work experience, volunteering, enterprise planning or a placement abroad. These will take the shape of supported independent activities. Assessment consists of a group project with a public outcome, an individual report reflecting on the scholarly basis of your project and your assessment of the process, and a placement report (at the end of semester 2). Students in the Law Pathway will also attend the lectures, and will follow a bespoke schedule of workshops, seminars, a field visit to The National Archives in London including archival training and a private tour of the archives. They will also undergo two specialised training sessions in Newcastle. Students in both pathways will follow the same assessment pattern, but those in the Law Pathway will work alongside students from the Law School to investigate a historical legal case using original archival material from The National Archives and Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, and their group project will see them produce public facing history outputs for these external clients, including exhibitions, website blogs, and contributions to their official social media channels. In Semester 2, the ‘Placement’ element will work with Law students to design and stage a reconstruction of the trial itself.

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HI5014 -

From Reconstruction to Reunification: Europe, 1945-1991 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about the problems that Europe faced at the end of the Second World War and the factors that led to the economic boom of the post-war years. These developments will be placed in the context of the struggle between the rival socio-political ideologies of liberalism and communism and the emergence of new social movements in Europe between 1945 and 1991. The module deals with the era of extended military and political confrontation between the main rival socio-political systems which defeated fascism and the eruption onto the world stage of 'new social forces' such as feminism and Third-World nationalism. It covers the key developments in European politics and society as well as Europe's relationship with the wider world during the period.

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HI5022 -

The Holocaust (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about the Holocaust in its full global, historical context. You will engage with the major historiographical debates surrounding the Shoah. Crucially, throughout the module, there will be a dual focus on the Holocaust’s perpetrators and its victims. The breadth of this focus ensures that the module will be interdisciplinary and you will learn how to navigate historical, literary and sociological perspectives on the Holocaust and its memory.

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HI5033 -

Civilians and the Second World War (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, you will learn about the civilian experiences of total warfare during the period of the Second World War (bearing in mind that exact dates of conflict and occupation vary from nation to nation). The class will take an international comparative approach, examining civilian experiences not just on the British ‘Home Front’ but also experiences in America, Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union as well the states under enemy occupation. The module will take a thematic rather than nation based approach to this area of study. Topics including bombardment, childhood, gender, work and labour, domestic life, internment, occupation, collaboration and resistance will all be explored internationally and comparatively. You will engage with a broad range of historical debates and concepts as well as engaging with a wide variety of primary materials including state propaganda, film, radio broadcasts, oral testimony, diaries, memoirs and archival material. This will equip you to think critically about both historiography and primary sources.

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HI5034 -

Setting America Right: Conservatism in the United States, 1933 - 2016 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will explore the history of conservatism in the United States of America from the 1930s to the present day. Beginning with opposition to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, this module will trace the evolution of American conservatism through the era of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and all the way up to the emergence of Donald Trump and the ‘alt-right’. At the heart of this module is a simple question: did the U.S. ‘turn right’ during the twentieth century? In answering that question, you will grapple with the fundamental issue of what it means to be a ‘conservative’ in America and how that label has been used and fought over in different eras and contexts.

You will learn about developments in high politics and at the grassroots, and gain an understanding of conservative movements both within and without the Republican Party. As well as learning about crucial events in recent U.S. political history (such as Barry Goldwater’s transformational 1964 presidential campaign), you will learn about the ways that conservatives revolutionised the nation’s political culture, pioneering innovative electoral techniques such as direct mail and constructing formidable conservative media outlets like Fox News. The module is organised in a broadly chronological way, but you will also explore key themes and movements that span decades, such as the religious right, anti-feminism, and ‘colour-blind’ conservatism.

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HI5038 -

Early Modern Monarchies: Power and Representation, 1500-1750 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will familiarise you with different aspects of monarchical rule in the early modern period. In particular, it will explore the history of royal courts between c. 1500 and 1750, ranging from England to Poland-Lithuania and covering dynasties such as the Valois and Bourbons, Habsburgs, Tudors and Stuarts, Jagiellonians, Vasas and Wettins. We will look at court intrigue, favourites and faction politics, gender, representation and political agency, ceremony, entertainments, fashion and royal palaces, and diplomacy as means of transnational contacts between royal courts. We will study various European concepts – including kingship and queenship, chivalry, divine right, ritual, and patronage – and consider how these were adapted to suit different styles of monarchies and courts. We will also think about the ways in which European royal houses were a connected network of cultural and political exchange.

You will learn about how early modern royal courts accommodated the needs of different political systems, for example absolute, elective, and parliamentary monarchy, while retaining key characteristics of European royal culture. We will tackle questions about representation in early modern politics and the day-to-day life at these centres of power by applying the most recent approaches from social, political and cultural history, including elements of archaeology, art history, gender history, and history of emotions. The module is organised thematically, but we will think about the degree of change between c. 1500 and 1750, as royal courts adapted to dynastic change and adopted emerging trends, such as the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Enlightenment.

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HI5040 -

Dictatorship and Development: Central America, 1912-1996 (Optional,20 Credits)

The tiny countries of Central America form a narrow land bridge between the continents of North and South America. For centuries a quiet

backwater, the region gained international importance in the twentieth century, thanks to the United States’ growing interest in its ‘backyard’ to

the south.

In this module, you will explore Central America’s tumultuous twentieth century via a variety of primary sources. You will use US military

archives to explore the US occupation of Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, and discover how historians have used oral history to rescue

memories of the El Salvadoran massacre of 1932. In the second half of the course, you will look at how ideas about development intersected

with U.S. informal empire in the region, using CIA and State Department documents to uncover the roots of the civil wars which wracked the

isthmus in the 1980s. Finally, you will learn about the controversy surrounding Rigoberta Menchú’s memoir of the Guatemalan civil war, and

consider how historians navigate conflicting documents and imperfect, contested memories to create credible accounts of past events.

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HI5042 -

The Making and Breaking of Industrial Britain, 1770-1990 (Optional,20 Credits)

By the 1880s, Britain was a major coal exporter and the largest centre of ship building and repair globally. Its manufacturing productivity dubbed it, ‘the workshop of the world’, and its import and export tonnage was colossal. Yet, a century later, by 1980, Britain rapidly entered post-industrialisation and the collapse of the vast infrastructural networks, mines and machinery which had facilitated its rapid nineteenth-century industrialisation. This module makes sense of this historical discontinuity, contextualising the dramatic and fast-paced making and breaking of Britain’s industries from the viewpoint of the environments which underpinned these rapid changes. You will analyse how Britain utilised its fortunate natural resources, notably navigable rivers and voluminous coal deposits, to become a powerful, influential driver of wider industrialisation internationally. You will analyse environmental drivers of industrialisation in comparison to other key drivers such as Empire, demography, urbanisation, social change, technology and politics. You will evaluate in depth how a closer engagement with key elements of the natural environment enabled the British and its wider empire to develop trade and industry successfully and to invent globally game-changing scientific and engineering innovations, notably George Stephenson’s locomotive (1814). Organised thematically, and introducing you to environmental history, the module focuses on one natural resource each week (rivers; coal; precious metals; steam; salt; animals; wood; chemicals; stone; and oil). Consequently, you will understand in depth how Britain’s industrialisation was underpinned by a closer, rather than a remoter, relationship between humans and the environment, thus reconnecting Britain’s industrial might to its natural environments.

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HI5043 -

Rise of the Russian Empire: the Romanovs, 1613-1855 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module examines major themes in the history of tsarist Russia between two major crises. In 1613, the election of the first Romanov tsar, Mikhail, marked the end of Russia’s ‘Time of Troubles’ when the state nearly collapsed. Two and half centuries later, the then mighty Russian Empire was defeated by Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War of 1853-56. In between these crises, Russia’s tsars acquired considerable power over their population and a vast empire that extended across three continents.
This module considers how the Romanov tsars were able to construct and consolidate autocratic power and how they exercised it. First, we will look at how the Romanov dynasty was established under the ‘boy-tsar’ Mikhail and then grew stronger under his successors in the 17th century. Next, we will turn to the major personalities of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great who, in a drive to ‘modernise’, drew upon western European technology and culture to shape and strengthen their empire. Yet ‘westernization’ also inadvertently undermined the stability of tsarism in the long-term, contributing to the growth of challenges to autocracy. Thus began a debate about Russia’s place in Europe which continues today. We will then consider how the successors of Catherine the Great, the so-called ‘enlightened despot’, dealt with her legacy by pursuing conservatism then ‘enlightened’ reform alternatively. Another major theme of the course is how, why and with what consequences, both domestic and international, the tsars were able to build an enormous empire, the largest country in the world. By the end of the eighteenth century, it extended from Poland and Finland in Europe, across Siberia in northern Asia, to Alaska in north America. The power of the Tsars, arguably, had reached its zenith by the early 19th century, when, despite victory over Napoleon in the first decades, cracks began to show in the social and cultural fabric of the empire. New forms of intellectual and political resistance to autocracy gradually emerged and the economic system of serfdom began to appear unfit to compete with the industrializing countries of Europe, demonstrated by Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-56.

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HI5044 -

Power and Freedom: West African History, 1850 to 2010 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module is an introduction to the modern history of West Africa from 1850 to 2010. You will learn about major themes in the history of the region from Senegal to Nigeria, and key debates around how historians and others have represented West Africa. The module considers precolonial West African states, how and why the region was incorporated into European empires, and West Africans’ responses to colonial rule. You will assess how European colonial policies towards West Africa varied across time and space, how Africans challenged colonial rule to win independence in the 1950s and 1960s, and the challenges faced by newly self-governing nations. The module studies the vicissitudes of ‘structural adjustment’ in the region during the 1980s, and democratisation in West Africa from the 1990s.

You will explore the history of West Africa from political, social, and cultural perspectives, building an understanding of how politics affected everyday life, and vice versa. The module has a broadly chronological structure. In some weeks seminars focus on political history, while other weeks address aspects of society and culture including music, dress, and urban life.

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HI5048 -

Witches, Knights and Plague: Medieval Europe on Film (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about how medieval violence is depicted on film (such as Game of Thrones and Gladiator) and how far it accurately reflects or the realities of life in the Middle Ages. It will also explore how twentieth-century governments (including Stalin) have used depictions of medieval warfare for political purposes.
The module moves on to explore how modern films have depicted relations between Muslims and Christians. We will examine movies such as Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to explore how films have stereotyped Muslims to arouse either hostility or sympathy. It will also examine how recent films about the Crusades have dealt with Christian-Muslim relations in the aftermath of 9/11, as well as the ways in which medieval religious intolerance has been represented in films such as The Da Vinci Code and how historians have responded to these depictions.
The final part of the module explores how filmmakers have portrayed gender on film. In particular, women are frequently depicted in highly sexualised ways in films and TV programmes which draw on medieval imagery. We will also explore how modern ideas about medieval women are represented in films about witchcraft (The Black Death and The Seventh Seal), as well as exploring how filmmakers depict medieval women who transcended their gender such as Joan of Arc who led armies into battle (Joan of Arc: The Messenger).

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HI5052 -

History/Film: Using Popular Film as Historical Evidence (Optional,20 Credits)

We know you like films, and we know that you like using them as historical evidence. But are you aware that you need a very particular skill set in order to analyse and write about films properly? If you weren’t but are interested in finding out more, and particularly if you are thinking of using film in your final-year dissertation, then this is the module for you.

This team-taught module invites you to consider a variety of popular film genres, with a specific view towards considering their value to the historian, both as sources about the past AND sources from the past. Key genres that we’ll examine include documentaries, historical dramas, biopics, science fiction, and more. The module tutors will provide you with leading-edge theoretical and methodological approaches through which you will learn how to analyse cinema as a historian.

Learning about the ways in which we might dissect a film will provide you with a range of tools that you can bring to bear on the world around you. For example, you will be able to demonstrate how popular film reflects and attempts to shape popular opinion about key political issues of the time, and how the semiotics of film enable us to move beyond simply responding to film’s plot or its cast.

As this suggests, the module requires you to develop additional analytic skills to those that you would wield when analysing textual documents. It will enable you to move beyond issues pertaining to a film’s factual accuracy (or lack thereof) to consider its emotional truths, its ideological standpoints, the ways in which the filmmakers attempt to convey and disguise political messages, and the way in which audiences are able to absorb, reject, or transform these messages as they see fit. Naturally, it will encourage you to consider the complicated relationship between the past, film, history, Film Studies, and the discipline of History itself. It might even do more…

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HI5054 -

Field Notes: Politics and Policy Making in Place (Optional,20 Credits)

“Field Notes” will take you out of the classroom to immerse you in the major issues facing the contemporary world. The North East is a region alive with controversy and contested spaces which speak to larger challenges facing the nation and the global community in the 21st century. Landscapes throughout the region, from the coast to the Northumberland National Park, Newcastle city centre to the banks of the River Tyne, are inscribed with complex histories which intersect with, and inform, ongoing battles over how to manage, protect, and develop these spaces for a future informed by severe social and economic challenges and the upheaval caused by climate change. You will be taken to four different local sites that are at the centre of these larger environmental-social-political and economic battles and learn how to unravel the complex dynamics that underpin these spaces (from the choices made by policy makers at the local, national, and global level, to the role of communities, activist groups, and other stakeholders in shaping these places). You will be asked to complete a range of assessments from a group presentation to a public poster and site report responding to these field trips. Through the module, therefore, you will be taught how to understand the dynamics of place and policy making and most importantly how to apply historical research to contemporary social issues that impact our world today.

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HI5055 -

Migration Nation: Britain’s History of Immigration, Multiculturalism and Race (Optional,20 Credits)

This module introduces students to a long overview of migration and British history. This stretches back around five centuries, but the main focus is on the last 200 years. It explores how mobility, transnationalism, and ethnic diversity have played a transformative role in shaping British society, culture, economics and politics. The module considers diversity and difference from the early modern period, however primarily focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the significance of the colonial and postcolonial context. Students will examine patterns of mobility and circulation within the British Empire and how conceptions of subjecthood and citizenship shifted over the twentieth century with the advent of the Commonwealth.

The course will also explore the political dimensions of migration: forms of transnational activism and dissent, issues around political marginalisation and representation, refugees and asylum, and racist and anti-immigrant movements. We will consider the ways in which diaspora communities have transformed the social and cultural fabric of areas to, and from, which they have moved. The module explores the evolution of British multiculturalism, ‘race relations’ and the era of interfaith relations.

The module also introduces students to some of the key concepts and debates in the study of migration, such as diaspora, transnationalism, circulation, mobility and hybridity. Students will be encouraged to engage with a wide range of primary and secondary material, foregrounding the voices and struggles of immigrants, interrogating a full range of historical sources, and reflecting on the extent to which official archives and versions of British history represent – or ignore – the stories of minority communities.

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HI5056 -

Al-Andalus to America: Spain and the New World (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will acquire in-depth knowledge about the Spanish late medieval period, with all of its captivating myths and influential realities. You will become critically familiar with exciting passages of universal history, including the end of the Reconquest (with the rise of the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews and Muslims), the discovery of America, often referred to as an “encounter” of civilisations, and the development of the modern world from an Iberian perspective. You will explore the concepts of religious persecution and clash of civilisations, establishing the links between the political role of the Catholic Church and the development of a “new” continent in America from 1492. Moreover, you will gain an expert understanding of coexistence and conflict between Muslims, Jews and Christians in Spain, including the transformational cultural legacies that Europe and the West owe to Al-Andalus and Sefarad (Muslim and Jewish Spain). You will also gain a nuanced understanding of imperial dynamics between indigenous civilisations, including the Inca and the Azteca, and European settlers in the New World. You will learn about Spain’s Christian and Imperial mandates by using a wide range of translated primary sources, which will include, amongst many others, the Lead Books of Granada, Hernán Cortés’s Letters from Mexico, and Álvar Núnez’s account of his ten years journey from Florida to California, Castaways. You will also be able to evaluate the role of propaganda, from a comparative history perspective, when assessing the key events that took place before and after 1492, and how these shaped the course of modern history.

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HI5057 -

People Power before Democracy: The United Kingdom, 1790-1914 (Optional,20 Credits)

How did ordinary people make their voices heard before democracy? In this module you will learn how to answer this question through examining the UK’s ‘long’ nineteenth century (roughly 1790-1914). This was a period in which few men and no women could vote and political institutions were dominated by an aristocratic elite. Yet, this era was characterised by ‘people power’. Mighty movements such as anti-slavery and women’s suffrage mobilised massive numbers of people to make powerful demands for political change. The module explores this topic, firstly through studies of specific movements, such as Chartism and popular radicalism, before providing a broader thematic focus on different types of political practices and activities that were used by ordinary people, such as petitions or meetings and demonstrations. During the course of the module you will learn about the links between these movements and practices and important historical processes such as the development of democracy in the modern UK. During the module you will engage with a variety of historical debates, such as why was there no revolution in the UK?; and with a wide selection of primary sources, including newspapers, official records, and visual images.

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IR5010 -

Foreign Policy Analysis (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn about the most significant issues and challenges of our times in the domain of foreign policy. While grounded in IR theory, you will be introduced to foreign policy analysis (FPA)-specific frameworks and levels of analysis such as to systems of governance, decision making structures and models, leadership analysis, the role of the media, public opinion and special interest groups. Empirically, you will learn about the foreign policy of key actors in the international system towards a region or set of issues such as, for example, US and China foreign policy.

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ML5001 -

Unilang - Languages for all - Level 5 Placeholder (Optional,20 Credits)

The 20-credit yearlong Unilang modules (stages 1 – 5 depending on language) aim to encourage a positive attitude to language learning and to develop and practise the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing introducing the basic/increasingly complex grammatical structures and vocabulary of the spoken and written language (depending on stage) and developing your ability to respond appropriately in the foreign language in spoken and written form in simple and increasingly complex everyday situations.

These modules also introduce you to the country and the culture of the country. In doing this, Unilang modules are intended to encourage and support international mobility; to enhance employability at home and abroad; to improve communication skills in the foreign language as well as English; to improve cultural awareness and, at the higher stages, to encourage access to foreign sources.

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MP5022 -

Cultural Identities on Screen (Optional,20 Credits)

The module will focus on the televisual representation and articulation of cultural identities in Britain and the US. We will look at how gender, ethnicity, national and regional identities are constructed through an examination of different genres and areas of screen media, such as drama, comedy and current affairs. We will explore issues such as class, gender and racial stereotypes, visibility of minority groups and integration. Throughout the course we will also consider the function of television, considering what its role might be in the construction of cultural identities.

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YC5001 -

Academic Language Skills for Humanities and Social Sciences (Core – for International and EU students only,0 Credits)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

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AD5009 -

Humanities Work Placement Year (Optional,120 Credits)

The Work Placement Year module is a 120 credit year-long module available on degree courses which include a work placement year, taken as an additional year of study at level 5 and before level 6 (the length of the placement(s) will be determined by your programme but it can be no less than 30 weeks. You will undertake a guided work placement at a host organisation. This is a Pass/Fail module and so does not contribute to classification. When taken and passed, however, the Placement Year is recognised in your transcript as a 120 credit Work Placement Module and on your degree certificate in the format – “Degree title (with Work Placement Year)”. The learning and teaching on your placement will be recorded in the work placement agreement signed by the placement provider, the student, and the University.

Note: Subject to placement clearance; this is a competitive process and a place on the module cannot be guaranteed.

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AD5010 -

Humanities Study Abroad Year (Optional,120 Credits)

The Study Abroad Year module is a full year 120 credit module which is available on degree courses which include a study abroad year which is taken as an additional year of study at level 5 and before level 6. You will undertake a year abroad at a partner university equivalent to 120 UK credits. This gives you access to modules from your discipline taught in a different learning culture and so broadens your overall experience of learning. The course of study abroad will be dependent on the partner and will be recorded for an individual student on the learning agreement signed by the host University, the student, and the home University (Northumbria). Your study abroad year will be assessed on a pass/fail basis. It will not count towards your final degree classification but, if you pass, it is recognised in your transcript as a 120 credit Study Abroad Module and on your degree certificate in the format – “Degree title (with Study Abroad Year)”.

Note: Subject to placement clearance; this is a competitive process and a place on the module cannot be guaranteed.

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AM6005 -

Red, White and Green: The American Environment Through Time (Core,20 Credits)

The US is a paradox when it comes to nature: it is both the country that invented the national park concept and the biggest carbon dioxide emitter historically; it was the first country to celebrate Earth Day in 1970, but it is also where the hyper consumerist lifestyle first emerged; it is the birthplace of some of the oldest and most important environmental NGOs and of climate denial. How can we make sense of the US and its relationship to nature? Are Americans doomed to destroy the natural wonders of their nation? Can we envision a red, white and green nation that would put science and technology at the service of sustainability and environmental justice?

The module will answer these questions by examining the US’ complicated relationship to nature chronologically. In doing so, we will re-examine and challenge conventional narratives of US history by integrating the role of nature as a historical actor in its own right. Examples of themes covered include: nature and conquest; Native American environments; nature and technology; the wilderness myth; animals in US history; environmental disasters; urban nature; the rise of environmentalism; environmental justice and environmental racism; waste and pollution; toxicities, etc.

The module will approach these themes using the tools of the environmental humanities. Combining historical, visual and literary analysis with insights from ecology and other ‘hard’ sciences, we will achieve a thorough understanding of environmental phenomena in their full complexity.

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EL6004 -

Vamps and Virgins: Gothic Sexualities (Optional,20 Credits)

From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel (1816) to Alan Ball’s True Blood (2008-), this module invites you to explore the dark, shadowy world of the Gothic in relation to a diverse range of literary texts and modern media. Combining the study of familiar canonical fictions with new and challenging material, we will train our focus on the enigmatic figure of the vampire, examining its various transitions and developments through the lens of critical and cultural theory.

Through an analysis of the Gothic, the module aims to develop your critical thinking, as well as your existing knowledge of literature, film, and television dating from 1816 to the present day. In doing so, it will encourage you to reflect on and interrogate the complex ways in which Gothic texts engage with, and intervene in, broader cultural debates about gender and sexuality.

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EL6042 -

Postwar US Writing (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will enhance your understanding of postwar American literary culture in its broader social, political, and
economic contexts. Mid-century America was a time of profound contradictions: while US citizens lived under the shadow the bomb, many experienced unprecedented economic prosperity and access to new material comforts. We will explore how national paranoia
about the spread of communism and the nuclear arms race sat alongside – and fed into – the postwar image of the American ‘good life’, an image of suburban conformity underpinned by the growth of advertising and consumer culture. We will consider how postwar fiction and poetry challenges this demand for conformity in both content and form: through its complex representations of the American cold war experience and its innovative narrative and poetic strategies. The texts on this module offer insights into postwar attitudes towards a diverse range of topics, including national and international politics, work, leisure, and domesticity, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity.

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HI6004 -

The African American Freedom Struggle Since 1945 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this seminar-based module you will study the roots, trajectory, and legacies of the African American Freedom Struggle since 1945. Although the primary focus will be on the movement for racial justice in the US South between roughly 1954 and 1968, that history will be placed in longer chronological and broader national and international contexts. More specifically you will study the grass-roots activities of African Americans engaged in various forms of resistance and protest alongside the histories of the major civil rights groups – the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). You will interrogate their tactics, examine their often fraught relationships with each other, and assess their achievements and failures in the face of widespread resistance to racial change. You will examine the contributions of the extraordinary ordinary people at the heart of the struggle, as well as those of nationally prominent leaders such as Martin Luther King. In this module you will also analyse the relationship between the civil rights movement and the federal government, address the role of the media and popular culture in shaping both the history and popular understandings of the post-war Freedom Struggle, and examine the international coordinates and impact of the struggles.

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HI6007 -

Civil War and Reconstruction (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn about the causes, events, and results of the U.S. Civil War, a war which took over 620,000 lives; the bloodiest in American history. The Civil War and its aftermath are considered the dividing line between early and modern US history. The War ended the South’s dominance of American politics. It also led to three major constitutional amendments which ended slavery, defined American citizenship, and provided for African American votes respectively which still have implications in American life in the 21st century. The course begins in 1850 by looking at American sectionalism and how and why that caused the founding of the Republican party and the eventual secession of eleven southern states. It then examines the military aspects of the war and explores its social, political, economic, and diplomatic effects. The end of the term will be spent on the political and social aspects of the post-War period known as ‘Reconstruction.’ It will explain how American national identity became redefined during this tumultuous time, especially in popular memory around public commemorations, art, literature and film. You will also analyse the controversial historiography of this period throughout the semester.

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HI6010 -

Women, Crime and Subversion in Early Modern Europe (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn how different scholars have conceptualised and written about women, crime and subversion from 1400 to 1800. You will assess and analyse why and how tensions in the early modern period meant that authorities across Europe directed their attention upon women in specific ways. The influence of the Protestant reformation is examined in terms of its impact upon female behaviour. Female criminality and subversive behaviour will be examined through a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, including feminist and gender theories. Key concepts at the fore of this module include witchcraft, petty treason, infanticide, female piracy, prostitution, adultery and fornication, lesbianism, the crime of cross-dressing, and women’s strategies in European court systems. You will move beyond areas classified as criminal to behaviour considered as subversive and deviant, such as domestic disorder. You will utilize a wide range of primary sources including court records, the Old Bailey legal records, assize court records and female testimonies from across Europe which will equip you to think critically about academic literature, primary sources and historical interpretation.

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HI6022 -

Joint Honours Dissertation (Optional,40 Credits)

The dissertation gives you the opportunity to work on a sustained piece of research of your own (guided) choice and to present that research in an organised and coherent form in a major piece of writing. The module will teach you how to function as an independent researcher, learner and writer. The dissertation represents the culmination of your studies as a Joint Honours student. You will apply the skills developed in your earlier studies to a discrete body of primary sources, working upon a clearly defined topic. In designing and implementing your research project, you will draw on insights and approaches from both of the disciplines that from part of your degree. The dissertation will develop your research skills and allow you to work independently, drawing on the advice and guidance of a designated supervisor.

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HI6025 -

Northern Ireland: The 'Troubles' and the Search for Peace (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn about the origins, evolution and dynamics of one of Europe’s most recent – and deadly – intra-state conflicts. The ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, 1968-98, was marked by their persistence and seeming intractability. With the paramilitary ceasefires in the 1990s, a new era opened; but difficulties remain in moving from a mere absence of violence to a genuine peace. You will examine the dynamics of violence and its impact on the politics and culture of Northern Ireland over a fifty year period, and the significant challenges posed to peace since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

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HI6027 -

Barricades and Boulevards: Revolution, Culture, and Urban Life in Nineteenth-century Paris (Optional,20 Credits)

This module examines the political, social and cultural history of Paris between 1815 and 1900. You will study different aspects of the history of nineteenth-century Paris – revolution, urban development, popular culture, and artistic life – through a range of primary sources, including contemporary artistic and literary representations of the city. You will assess and analyse the relationship between the city of Paris and political change during this period, with a particular focus on urban insurrection and revolution. You will also explore artistic movements such as Romanticism and Impressionism, as well as the rise of leisure and consumer culture and the urban development of the city, especially during the Second Empire (1852-1870). Throughout the module, you will investigate wider historical debates about urbanisation and the growth of the nineteenth-century European city. In looking at the history of nineteenth-century Paris – the ‘capital of the nineteenth century’, as the German theorist Walter Benjamin described it – from a range of perspectives, this module will enhance your knowledge and understanding of cultural and social approaches to history, and develop your ability to use interdisciplinary methodologies in your study of the past.

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HI6031 -

Recording the Past: Making Your Own History Documentary (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will appeal to anyone interested in telling stories. It will help you think about how your existing historical skills can be applied beyond university, while equipping you with experience of project management, team building, and working with a range of non-university stakeholders. This module gives students the opportunity to make their own short audio documentary. Students pitch, script, record, and edit their own documentaries using audio equipment and free, open-source, cross-platform audio software. Students will be given a broad theme (such as the 1970s and the Northeast of England) and will then generate a proposal and ‘pitch’ this to the class. Following selection, groups will then work on developing a script and identifying interviewees. Teams will produce their documentaries by dividing up the production responsibilities, so that students gain not only experience of teamwork but also of making a specific contribution to the project. Across the semester, the class will progress through the stages of pre- and post-production together week-by-week. Portable recording equipment will be made available and students will be (i) instructed on using industry-standard audio equipment; (ii) classes on ethics and oral history techniques; (ii) training on how to use editing software. At the same time, the class will both engage with relevant literature and listen to a range of audio documentary in order to better understand creative and production issues. The emphasis in this module will be both on the finished documentary but also on the process involved and the skills acquired along the way.

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HI6032 -

Men of War: Masculinities and Warfare in Britain 1914 -1945 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, you will explore the British male experiences of the First and Second World Wars, primarily through the lens of gender and masculinities. The module will examine the male experience in the broadest sense, looking not only at the experience of training, fighting and dying for Britain but also the experiences of various types of civilian men including those excluded from military service, civilian male workers and civil defence volunteers. The module will also examine the after effects of warfare by considering the experiences of those men who returned from war mentally and physically damaged as well as exploring the cultural legacies of the two world wars in Britain. This is a cutting-edge area of historical research. Therefore, you will be engaging with a growing and developing set of historical debates and ideas. Moreover, you will deal with a wide variety of primary materials including state propaganda, film, radio broadcasts, oral testimony, diaries, memoirs and archival material. This will equip you to think critically about both historiography and primary sources.

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HI6037 -

Environmental disaster in modern Britain (Optional,20 Credits)

Sometimes it can seem that concern about climate change and the broader environmental crisis is a recent phenomenon whose effects are largely felt in other parts of the world. This module challenges these assumptions. You will learn about the origins of these concerns in their British context through five environmental disasters that shaped Britain after the Second World War. They are the devastating east coast floods of 1953, the collapse of the spoil heap onto a school at Aberfan in Wales in 1966, the wrecking of the Torrey Canyon, an oil tanker, off the Cornish coast in 1967, the near-extinction of birds of prey as a consequence chemical pesticides in the 1950s and 60s, and the hurricane that caused widespread destruction to woods and forests in 1987. You will spend two weeks on each of these case studies. The first week will focus on the event itself and its human and non-human causes and costs. The second week will focus on the event’s long-term political, social, and cultural consequences. Among the questions you’ll consider are: How did public opinion and the media respond to these disasters? What short and long-term effects did they have on government policy? In what ways did these disasters catalyse the development of the modern environmental movement? How has our understanding of what constitutes a natural disaster changed over time? You will learn about the historical development of theories of climate change and you will be able to contextualise historically the environmental crisis that is shaping political culture today and develop a greater understanding of why it is so difficult to agree on possible solutions.

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HI6041 -

Russia Between Democracy and Dictatorship: Gorbachev to Putin, 1985-2008 (Optional,20 Credits)

This module explores a tumultuous period in Russian history when the pendulum swung from dictatorship towards increasing democracy and back again. Relatively freer politics and loosening of controls over the media were accompanied by economic dislocation and social instability under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, while conversely, the Putin era saw improved economic performance, stability and some restoration of order alongside the return of a creeping authoritarianism in politics and tighter censorship. Students will investigate why the Soviet regime, which ten years previously had seemed destined to last indefinitely, was so rapidly undermined. We will examine the political struggle that accompanied perestroika, as well as how official Soviet ideology unravelled under the impact of glasnost’ and the opening of public debate. The module considers Gorbachev’s government’s attempt to find economic solutions to stagnation and the disastrous effects of the collapse of faith in the command economy. Also, particular attention is paid to the role that nationalist movements in the Baltic, Ukraine, Transcaucasia and Central Asia played in tearing the Soviet system apart. The module then turns to Russia’s turbulent post-Soviet transition, the ‘Wild Years’, a dangerous and exciting period where, after the USSR legally ceased to exist on 31 December 1991, the new state, the Russian Federation, set off on the road to democracy and a market economy without any clear conception of how to complete such a transformation in the world’s largest country. As well as looking at Russia’s new political system, we will examine the economic reforms introduced as the country underwent ‘shock therapy’ to create a market economy, involving mass privatization, financial crisis, the rise of oligarchs. We will consider the devastating social impact of these policies, as life expectancy plummeted, birth rates collapsed and crime exploded. Students will assess how in these conditions Vladimir Putin, assumed power and explore how his presidency saw economic upswing and improvement in living standards but also a creeping authoritarianism in politics and media controls. Finally, we will investigate Putin’s cultivation of an aggressive, socially conservative Russian nationalism which grew from the shame and international humiliation derived from the catastrophic transition of the former superpower.

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HI6042 -

How to Kill a King: Monarchies in Crisis, 1547-1689 (Optional,20 Credits)

Being an early modern king could be dangerous. Over the course of the period, monarchs were executed, assassinated, and deposed. While Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I lost their heads, boy-king Louis XIV pretended to be asleep as the angry Parisian mob entered his bedroom during the Fronde and James I narrowly escaped being blown up by the Gunpowder Plot. Even if not resolved in loss of life or deposition, monarchical crises that gripped early modern Europe posed a significant challenge to royal authority and legitimacy. These moments of crisis were connected to the changing nature of royal power, redefined in clashes between monarchs and their subjects exacerbated by the Reformation, dynastic politics, the changing relationship between monarchs and nobles, the emerging concept of the state and new ideas about how it should be governed. Over the course of this module you will examine monarchical crises through case studies including the executions of Jane Grey and Mary Stuart, assassinations of Henri III and Henri IV, the English Civil War and Glorious Revolution, the Fronde, and the Defenestration of Prague and deposition of the Winter King, Frederick V. We will consider the causes, outcomes, and representations of these crises through a variety of sources, including pamphlets, chronicles, letters, and images. We will also consider the representation of these events in the modern media such as film, television, and fiction writing.

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HI6047 -

Dissertation with Public History (Optional,40 Credits)

In this module, you will be provided with the skills to complete a written dissertation and a public-facing output on a topic that you will agree with your supervisors. The dissertation with public history represents an opportunity to apply the skills you have acquired at earlier levels, as well as a chance to develop new skills, both theoretical and practical, associated with public history. In Semester One you will produce the written piece of work. This written piece, which can take the form of a ‘short dissertation’ or ‘extended essay’, may be an analysis of a discrete body of primary sources, a discussion of historiographical controversy, or an intervention in a current debate about the public understanding of the past. In Semester Two you will work with your supervisors to produce a public output (the ‘knowledge exchange’ component), such as a digital exhibition or public history podcast, based on your research for the short dissertation/extended essay. The knowledge exchange aspect may include work with an external partner. The ‘Dissertation with public history’ is an exercise in research and public engagement and is intended to develop your research and communication skills, as well as your ability to work independently. Topics will be supervised by two appropriate tutors, one with subject-specific knowledge, the second with knowledge exchange experience.

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HI6048 -

From the Campus to the Streets: Student Activism and Youth Movements since 1900 (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, we will consider how young people have responded to, and in some cases shaped, major episodes and developments in modern and contemporary history. In examining youth action, we will cover a variety of movements and campaigns. For example, we will discuss the role of communist and fascist youth organisations in the 1920s and 1930s as well as the involvement of students in anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles. Moreover, we will investigate youth politics in the Cold War, the impact of student protests in the 1960s as well as young people’s efforts to address issues such as gender equality or the fate of the environment.

The scope of the module is international, with examples that cover cases from Europe (France, Germany, Russia), Africa (Ghana, South Africa), Asia (China, Japan) and the Americas (Brazil, Mexico, the United States). We will pay particular attention to global aspirations and connections, as we will trace how young activists sought to build ties across national borders. Such efforts will also allow us to consider how various movements imagined and pursued the quest for a different world and a better future.

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HI6049 -

Modern India: Making the World’s Biggest Democracy (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn how the world’s biggest democracy came into being, starting with the successful struggle for independence and going up to the 21st century. You will develop a broad understanding of India’s postcolonial politics, culture, economy and society. Using a diverse range of materials, you will analyse how the British Empire’s ‘Jewel in the Crown’ established itself as a postcolonial democratic republic amidst numerous obstacles, tensions and conflicts.

The first half of the module introduces you to the contemporary history of India through five episodes, which help us to understand key issues like decolonisation, secularism, corruption and liberalisation. The second half of the module considers six themes, exploring how these tell us different things about India in the second-half of the 20th century. Chronologically, the module begins with anti-colonial nationalism of Mahatma Gandhi and others, from around the 1930s onwards. The module then covers almost the entire period of independent India, from the creation of the republic and partition of the subcontinent in 1947, right up to 2019 – the year in which the current Hindu nationalist BJP government won a second consecutive landslide victory, marking for many the demise of India as a secular, multicultural democracy.

The second half of the module covers six major themes: Gender, Caste, Migration, Conflict, Communalism, and Environment. Exploring the recent history of India through these different lenses provides new angles for understanding the ‘world’s largest democracy’ from a range of diverse perspectives.

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HI6050 -

From Grand Tours to Dirty Weekends: Travellers and Tourists in Britain, Ireland and Beyond (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will discover how the histories of travel and tourism are deeply connected to the making of modern Britain and Ireland. You will explore the history of tourism from its eighteenth-century origins, when seaside towns and spas welcomed their first visitors and British and Irish aristocrats embarked on Grand Tours of Europe. You will learn how British and Irish landscapes were made iconic by Romantic writers, and how the development of steamships, railways, roads, bicycles, and motor travel revolutionised the way in which journeys were experienced and narrated.

You will discover how the royal tourism of Queen Victoria and her descendants helped strengthen the political union of the United Kingdom, and how the tourism industry forged cross-border links, promoted cooperation, and encouraged dialogue between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State after the Partition of Ireland in 1921. You will also learn how tourism was connected to the expansion of the British Empire, as travellers on Thomas Cook’s tours followed missionaries, traders, and empire builders to the Middle East, Africa, and India. You will consider how Black British travellers have experienced city space and the countryside in different ways to their white counterparts, and the photography of Ingrid Pollard will prompt you to think about the relationship between race and national identity in Britain today.

You will learn about key concepts and debates in the history of tourism, such as mobility, authenticity, landscape and place, gender, post-colonialism, the interaction of ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’, and the growing importance of travel as part of individual and national identity. You will engage with a wide variety of primary source material, from personal travel accounts, guidebooks, and timetables to the rich visual and material culture of postcards, illustrations, paintings, photographs, and poster artwork.

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IR6005 -

Media Power and Propaganda (Optional,20 Credits)

Most people find out about politics, and what is going on in the wider world, through the media. It is therefore critical to understand how the media functions in contemporary society. This module focuses upon the debate about the role of the media in liberal democracies: is it an independent check on the exercise of power or an instrument by which the powerful manipulate the masses? What is the impact of the media upon individuals: does it inform us or brainwash us? How are the Internet and other new technologies affecting individual’s ability to access alternative sources of information to the established media? What implications do these new media have for states that seek to direct, if not control, the public’s access to information? What role, if any, should propaganda play in a liberal democracy? Using concepts, such as power, and theories of media effects, media performance and interpersonal communication, students will be encouraged to engage with these fundamental questions.

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MI6005 -

Popular Music on Film and Television (Optional,20 Credits)

This module is concerned with popular music culture and its relationship to film, an area much neglected in academic film studies, television studies and popular music studies. As such, it seeks to address this absence by looking at a number of key junctures where popular music culture, the cinema and television inter-relate, exploring debates about gender representation, authorship, genre and music in performance, as well as how the films studied relate to context of their production and reception. The module, therefore, covers topics such as the following in a largely chronological fashion. An indicative syllabus is as follows:
1. Early moments: The significance of the early Elvis Films: King Creole
2. Punk rock on film: The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle
3. The revisionist musical: Von Trier, Lhurmann et al
4. Popular Music and national identity: The Commitments
5. Popular Music and ‘Race’ representation: 8 Mile
6. Gender play: Velvet Goldmine, In Bed with Madonna
7. The popular music / rock documentary
8. Dance and the male body: Saturday Night Fever
9. The concert film" from Wadleigh's Woodstock to Godard's One plus One.
10. Critical approaches to music video: Corbijn, Cunningham et al.
11. Nostalgia and the popular musical biopic: Control

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MI6007 -

Cult Film and Television (Optional,20 Credits)

You will learn to understand how the term ‘cult’ has been applied to film and television programmes in different ways, and how the concept has developed across history. The module will enable you to critically examine the ways that cult has been theorised both in relation to films and television programmes, and some of the key differences between cult television and cult film. You will understand how cult can be applied to both films, the reception of films, as well as how it has increasingly infiltrated marketing discourses. Case studies on the module include midnight movies, authorship and cult, fandom, telefantasy, censorship and controversy, exploitation cinema and global cult cinema.

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MI6022 -

The Modern Horror Film (Optional,20 Credits)

The modern period in horror cinema is generally seen as beginning in 1968 with the release of Night of the Living Dead. This module explores the wide range of horror films produced since that date, primarily in the US but also considering the development and influence of horror film production in Italy, Japan and the UK. Through this exploration, the module will identify key themes, formats and cycles, and engages with the relation of the horror genre to changes in the film industry and to broader social and historical change. It also explores the aesthetic innovations and challenges offered by a range of forms of horror, and the creative ways in which the genre has experimented with film form and style. In taking the module, you will acquire an understanding of the critical and cultural issues raised by this important area of American and global culture and you will develop your own critical and analytic insights into a range of iconic horror films produced between 1968 and the present.

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MP6029 -

Cinema and Society (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module, you will critically examine the relationship between US filmic institutions (films and industrial bodies – hereafter “cinema”) and different social contexts, including, for example: changes to the Hollywood Studio System (and the birthing of the “New Hollywood”), cinema’s responses to war and global trauma, and cinema’s engagement with issues surrounding race, gender and sexuality. Taught through lectures, demonstrations (film screenings) and student-led seminars, the course explores many of the ways cinema has engaged with key societal concerns.

You will be required to read and reflect on specific theoretical and empirical academic work by leading scholars and commentators and, using your analytical and interpretive skills, relate this work to the issues raised in class and by the accompanying film screenings. The module is assessed by a written essay or equivalent video essay, which is designed to test your knowledge of film history and industry (one of the world's major mass communications industries), to evidence a sophisticated understanding of the issues under scrutiny, and your ability to work to a deadline. Ultimately, the module asks you to consider: What is the significance of studying cinema as a mass communications industry, an outlet for personal expression, and as a political tool? What can cinema tells us about history? What can cinema tell us about ourselves?

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YC5001 -

Academic Language Skills for Humanities and Social Sciences (Core – for International and EU students only,0 Credits)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

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To start your application, simply select the month you would like to start your course.

History and American Studies BA (Hons)

Home or EU applicants please apply through UCAS

International applicants please apply using the links below

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Full time Courses are primarily delivered via on-campus face to face learning but could include elements of online learning. Most courses run as planned and as promoted on our website and via our marketing materials, but if there are any substantial changes (as determined by the Competition and Markets Authority) to a course or there is the potential that course may be withdrawn, we will notify all affected applicants as soon as possible with advice and guidance regarding their options. It is also important to be aware that optional modules listed on course pages may be subject to change depending on uptake numbers each year.  

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