History and American Studies BA (Hons)

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.

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.

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.

What was or is tragedy? When and why did tragic drama begin to be written and performed? How have later writers of tragedy built on or surpassed early forms of tragedy? What did or does tragedy tell us about the world we live in? This module addresses these questions, with a survey of tragic drama from the classical past, through the early modern period, to the twentieth century. You will learn to contextualise each tragedy in relation to the conflicts and strains of the period in which it was made and consumed, while also thinking about the relations between writing, gender, religion, and politics, issues of literary influence, and the function of art in times of crisis, past and present.

Building on your work correlating Shakespearean tragedy and modern drama at Level 4 (Titus Andronicus and Blasted), and prefiguring your extended writing work for the dissertation and on drama-based modules such as Marlowe in Context at Level 6, this module will develop your understanding of the dramatic genre of tragedy. This will involve looking at tragedy’s earliest forms, the early modern revival and revision of such forms, and modern reworkings of the genre and its concerns.

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.

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.

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.

This module familiarises you with a turbulent era in European history. Between the First and Second World War, European societies faced a variety of challenges, from depression and dictatorship to civil war and international conflict. After fighting had ended in November 1918, countries had to cope with a shattered economy, traumatised soldiers and a volatile political situation. Over the subsequent two decades, they experienced a clash between competing political forces: liberal democracy, communism and fascism. Yet, this module also considers arguments that contradict notions of a permanent crisis. For instance, rather than viewing the Weimar Republic as being doomed to fail, you will also learn about its rich cultural life. In France, the Popular Front defended democracy at a time when fascist or authoritarian movements had grasped power elsewhere. At the international level, the foundation of the League of Nations was an ambitious attempt to create a global order.

This module pursues two major lines of enquiry. You will first study some countries in greater depth (Weimar Germany, early Soviet Russia, the French Third Republic, Republican Spain, the new states in Central Europe). You will then tackle broader international developments (European empires, the League of Nations, campaigns waged by political activists, the international impact of communism) and different aspects of European dictatorships (e.g. leisure). As a whole, the module highlights the connections between events in different countries and presents you with fresh research on Europe’s ‘twenty-year crisis’.

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.

In this module you will explore French history during a century of revolutionary political and cultural change, from the death of the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV in 1715 to the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo. You will assess and analyse how, in the space of less than one hundred years, France transformed itself from the quasi-feudal society of the ‘Old Regime’ to a republic built on the revolutionary principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. You will examine key aspects of this transformation, such as the Enlightenment and the influence of its ideas, the nature of Old Regime society, the origins of the Revolution of 1789, the so-called ‘Reign of Terror’, and the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte. In addition, you will evaluate gender and race in these events by studying the role of women in the French Revolution and the impact of revolutionary ideas in France’s colonies. Throughout the module, you will also assess the varied and sometimes conflicting historiographical approaches to the French Revolution. Learning about France in the age of revolution will enable you to think critically about the relationship between different forces of change – political, economic, social and cultural – during historical periods of upheaval and transformation.

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.

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.

This module concerns the ongoing force and power of history: how the past shapes the politics of the present and is deployed in contemporary political conflicts and challenges. It fuses history with politics and culture and will require you to think expansively about differing ways that nation-states negotiate a troubled and/or violent past. The module covers five case studies of countries which have dealt in differing ways with the legacy of conflict: modern South Africa (1994-), post-Franco Spain (1975-), Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement (1998-), post-Second World War Germany (1945-), and Brazil since the end of the military dictatorship (1985-).

Each case study receives two weeks’ focus in lectures and seminars, granting the basics in understanding each example and the ways in which the violence and divisions of the past might be overcome (or not). It will help you consider themes of memory and the divergent ways in which history is commemorated or simply ignored. Similarly, you will consider the efficacy and value of ‘Truth Commissions’ – the contribution of an ‘honest broker’ (or outside perspective) – along with the ways in which debates and disputes at the past take place through culture or literature. Overall, this module will develop your interdisciplinary skills in combining history, politics and culture with the ongoing vibrancy of the past; how it can be understood and interpreted differently, and whether the official political sphere helps or hinders in the process.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

In this module, you will have the opportunity to write an independent, extended essay of 4500 words, on an individual from history who you will choose yourself, who connects to one of the core themes of the Northumbria History programme:
• Environmental Change
• Global Connections
• Struggles for Race and Gender Equality
• War and Conflict
• Media and Culture

You will learn how to frame research questions, how to manage a project independently, how to find primary sources and develop your academic writing.

Along the way you will also learn how to pitch a project plan, through research conversations that help build your independent research in collaboration with advice and feedback from other students.

As you study your chosen individual, you will address key questions:
• How does this person’s career or experience shed light on the history of [one of our five themes]?
• How characteristic is their connection to the chosen theme, and what makes their perspective unique?
• Did the individual try to articulate their own life-story (in letters, diaries, memoirs), and how important is their writing of the self to our critical understanding of their experience?
• What have other historians or critics made of their career experience and what different perspectives could in future, be drawn from studying their life?
• How can we assess the circle of family, friends, education, workplace and other influences that shaped the individual?
• How important were aspects of their individual identity such as race, ethnicity, religion, class, gender, local or regional background, their other pursuits?

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.

This module looks at the ways in which political violence is represented in the media, specifically the ways political violence is racialised and gendered. You will look at race and gender as analytical categories in international relations, along with the methodologies that scholars use to research these, and you will apply these understandings to the study of political violence via case studies such as the FARC, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the War in Iraq, Daesh and Black Lives Matter.

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.

You will examine mass communications in the context of contemporary practices, trends, developments and trajectories that have developed and are developing within contemporary mass communication industries. The module takes a distinctive pedagogic approach in that the core of the module consists of three team-taught and research-led ‘symposiums’ that address a specific debate, development or controversy within the field of mass communication industries (broadcast, digital, advertising) and enable you to acquire a critical, multi-perspective, and evaluative grounding in the issues shaping such industries. Complementing and reinforcing the Media staff-led symposiums will be a series of lectures provided by industry guest speakers (from television, radio, advertising and digital/web companies) that will provide practical and state-of-the-art insights into key issues underpinning mass communication operations and developments. Finally, two workshop sessions will be based upon you undertaking personal research into salient issues (the front-facing components of Apple stores, the ‘brand’ and customer typology) and research-informed reflexive approaches to social networking technologies.

The module explores the interrelationship between the media, power and identity. Students will be introduced to key academic writing from the fields of media and cultural studies on the link between the media, power and identity, and will then apply these concepts and approaches to a series of case studies analysed in class. The case studies stem from different media types (ranging from filmic examples, contemporary social media, streaming television and other media industries), as well as different historical and cultural contexts. The examples are deliberately chosen to resonate explicitly with the lives of young people, and to enable them to analyse and reflect on how identity categories such as social class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and nationality are presented in the media. Moving from the contemporary to the historical gives the opportunity to reflect on the current historical moment and how this is linked to longer trajectories in the development of media cultures, as well as to the social inequities and unequal distributions of power still marking the present.

This module will introduce you to several key aspects of media audience studies. Firstly, you will be introduced to the main recent traditions for studying media audiences, including the European cultural studies approach, the American mass communications approach, the reception studies tradition, and the interdisciplinary field of fan studies. These traditions all focus on the contexts that shape how audiences engage with and respond to different media and cultural products.
Additionally, you will gain experience in reading and evaluating original audience and reception research. This will involve reading actual empirical work in depth to understand the research process and to differentiate between strong and weak research.
Finally, the module will provide you with a unique opportunity to conduct your own small-scale audience research. Working in a small group, you will design, conduct, and compare different methods for understanding audience responses. This experience will help you to understand the challenges and processes involved in audience research.

This module builds upon your understanding of the significance of genre within the production, reception and analysis of film and television. It explores what we understand by the term genre in film and television through an analysis of the codes and conventions of major screen genres. It considers how genres change over time according to evolving aesthetic, social, technological and industrial contexts. It examines the practical implications, considerations, and issues of making genre films, including but not limited to questions around budget, story development, set design, costume, special effects, and performance. You will learn about key developments in genre scholarship, and how critical, theoretical and creative approaches can be utilised in researching and producing genre film and television. The module will introduce and problematise major issues and definitions of genre for film and television. It will consider the function of genre within mainstream and independent film industries, and will include case studies of specific genres alongside topics such as global film genres, genre in short form, adapting genre across media, genre and audiences and fandom. An indicative syllabus is as follows:

1. Genre and the film and TV Industries
2. Genre and Cultural Context 1: Science Fiction and Ideological Readings
3. Genre and Cultural Context 2: Romantic Comedy and Issues of Gender, Sexuality, and Identityn
4. National, International, Genre 1: Bollywood
5. National, International, Transnational Genre 2: Indigenous Film and TV
6. Making Genre Films 1: Genre in Short Form
7. Making Genre 2: Production Contexts (Set Designs/Costumes/Effects), Story Development,
8. Adapting Genre across Media: Film, TV, Games,
9. Genre and Audience Research
10. Genre and Fandom
11. Genre, Festivals and Curation

This module will introduce you to the history and historiography of the musical, both in and beyond the West, from the late nineteenth century to the present day. While focusing primarily on the USA and the UK, we will also develop case studies centred on other countries, such as China or South Korea. Throughout the module, our aim will be to understand the social, cultural and political forces that have shaped musicals as multicultural forms of theatre (albeit ones often denied the status of ‘art’) and, increasingly, as a global industry. Over the course of the module, we will retrace the emergence and transformations of the genre from operetta and vaudeville to the latest livestreamed blockbusters, by researching and analysing a wide range of literary, musical and visual materials. At the same time, we will take selected readings and shows as springboards for discussing how issues of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, social justice and equality, among others, are treated or reflected in specific scholarly texts, specific productions and/or in broader critical and public discourses. Further themes that we will cover include staging technologies, dance and choreography, and musicals’ encounters with twentieth-century media such as film and television.

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.