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top 10 in the uk for research quality

 

Interested in the past but looking forward to the future?

BA (Hons) History at Northumbria combines the study of the past with 21-century themes – you will learn to think about how history provides a deeper perspective on present-day challenges, as well as focusing on how these skills can enhance your future employability.

Throughout, you will gain new understanding of present-day concerns, including environmental change, global connectivity, racial and gender equality, war and conflict, and media and culture. With modules on American, African, British, Middle Eastern, and European history, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary, you will follow your academic passions and shape your own degree.

 

How does Northumbria’s History course help with employability?

Our degree sets you on a path towards a wide range of future careers. We give all students a chance to work on placement with a local business or cultural partner, and our unique new module on place and heritage helps you learn about policy making and funding applications in the real world. More broadly, as you explore new approaches to understanding the environment, conflict, and society around the world, 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 learning experience

You will be taught by leading researchers in the field (our historians were ranked 10th in the UK for their publications in the Research Excellence Framework, 2021). Your own research will thrive, leading to a dissertation where you make your own mark on the world of history, a project that gives you a voice in contemporary debates, and which builds confidence for a range of careers. Students will also have the option to extend their studies, either taking a placement year in industry or opting to study abroad in the likes of mainland Europe or North America.

 

Why choose Northumbria to study History?

Top Research: 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.

Student Rated: Over 97% of students studying History at Northumbria believed the library resources and staff supported their learning and 92% of students felt free to express their ideas, opinions, and beliefs (NSS, 2023).

See other similar courses you may be interested in: BA (Hons) History and Politics

 

Course Information

UCAS Code
V100

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 2024

Fee Information

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.

To get inspired check out our gallery below of our history students social posts to find out what it’s like to be part of the Northumbria community.
 

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

Opportunities to Succeed / History

Find out what our History students and staff are taking part in and achieving.

Student Life

A great social scene can be found at the heart of our campuses, featuring award-winning bars and a huge range of clubs and societies to join you'll be sure to meet people who share your enthusiasms.

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Accommodation

Discover our residences

There are many different reasons to choose to study at Northumbria but we got Alice, Reza and Jasmine to narrow it down to just three reasons each on why they wanted to come study here.

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Newcastle

City Life

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Student Life at Northumbria

Discover More

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The Hub

Student Blog

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Social Wall

#IAmNorthumbria

Book an Open Day / Experience History BA (Hons)

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

Entry Requirements 2024/25

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 2024/25 Entry

UK Fee in Year 1: £9,250

* The maximum tuition fee that we are permitted to charge for UK students is set by government. Tuition fees may increase in each subsequent academic year of your course, these are subject to government regulations and in line with inflation.


EU Fee in Year 1: £18,250

International Fee in Year 1: £18,250


Please see the main Funding Pages for 24/25 scholarship information.

 


ADDITIONAL COSTS

There are no Additional Costs

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How to Apply

Please use the Apply Now button at the top of this page to submit your application.

Certain applications may need to be submitted via an external application system, such as UCAS, Lawcabs or DfE Apply.

The Apply Now button will redirect you to the relevant website if this is the case.

You can find further application advice, such as what to include in your application and what happens after you apply, on our Admissions Hub Admissions | Northumbria University



Modules

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

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.

More information

HI4004 -

A Disunited Kingdom? The British and Irish Isles since 1689 (Core,20 Credits)

This module offers you a thematic survey of Britain in the transformative period since 1689. The module is intended to provide you with a conceptual treatment of the development of British society to complement other modules. By examining 11 key British historical figures it provides students with a broad overview from the Glorious Revolution to current debates on immigration and national identity, drawing attention to key themes and debates. It encourages the development of the historian’s skills of analysis. Among the key themes covered are: national identity and the making of a nation; the transformation of the system of production; the transformation of patterns of reproduction (including population and occupational change); transformations in systems of governance, power, protest and social policy; the transformation of popular culture and ritual; empire, immigration and the Britishness debate; and war, political and social change in the twentieth century. Throughout the module you will be exposed to the tensions and contests that existed between different views of Britain and Britishness: for instance between frontiers and centres; between ‘enlightened’ and popular cultures; and between the politics of parliament and the politics of the street.

More information

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.

More information

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.

More information

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.

More information

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.

More information

AD5011 -

Humanities Study Abroad (60 credit) (Optional,60 Credits)

The Study Abroad module is a semester based 60 credit module which is available on degree courses which facilitate study abroad within the programme. You will undertake a semester abroad at a partner university equivalent to 60 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 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 and, where appropriate, complementary activities as agreed between the student and module tutor.

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 module as part of the overall assessment.

More information

AM5003 -

The American West (Optional,20 Credits)

Ever watched a Western film? Heard about the American frontier? Wondered how westward expansion helped redefine the United States? This is the module for you. It focuses on the American West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, inviting you to consider its culture, history, politics, and society. Key themes include race, the Western movie genre, western literature, the frontier’s impact on the West and America in a wider sense, and the environment, all of which will be examined through different theoretical and methodological approaches.

Learning about the different ways in which we can see, understand and explain the West will provide you with a better range of tools to form your own understanding and explanation of what we can observe in the world today. For example, considering Western movies will encourage you to think afresh about American violence, civilization, and gender. Analysis of the frontier will develop your understanding of American progress, masculinity, and racism. Thinking about the western environment will prompt you to reassess the relationship between our natural environment and society.

At a theoretical level, this team-taught module will introduce you to the concept of ‘place’ within a framework informed by the multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches of American Studies. In this, it should challenge you to consider the way that History interacts with, for example, Film or Literature, and surprise you by encouraging you to rethink your prior assumptions about the American Experience. You’ll never think about America in the same way again, we promise.

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HI5006 -

Slavery, Sectionalism and Manifest Destiny (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will assess the importance of slavery and Manifest Destiny in the rise of American sectionalism from the end of the American War of Independence (1783) to 1850. This sectionalism created a political, social, and cultural atmosphere in the US which laid the basis for the crises of the 1850s and the Civil War. Slavery was the major issue which the Founders left unsolved in the aftermath of independence from Great Britain. As a result, it continued to divide the United States through the early republic and antebellum periods. Manifest Destiny was supposed to bring the sections together by uniting them in a quest to expand the United States westward. Ironically, Manifest Destiny exasperated the slavery issue and divisions between the North and the South. You will also study historiography of this period throughout the semester and you will be expected to become familiar with it. Students are expected to study relevant primary documents. This module will build specifically on the basic information learned in the early sections of the level-4 From Sea to Shining Sea. It will equip you to think critically about academic literature, primary sources, and historical interpretation.

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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. 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).

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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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HI5017 -

Into the Dark Valley: Europe, 1919-1939 (Optional,20 Credits)

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’.

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HI5020 -

Inquisition and Discovery: Myths and Realities of Late Medieval Spain (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, and between indigenous civilisations and conquistadores in the New World. You will learn about Spain’s Christian and Imperial mandates and about the discovery of America and the development of the New World by using a wide range of translated primary sources, which will include, amongst many others, the archives of the Spanish Inquisition and Christopher Columbus’s logbooks and letters. You will also be able to evaluate the role of propaganda (Black Legend and White Legend) when assessing your own perceptions about the key events that took place in the late medieval Hispanic world, and how these changed universal history forever.

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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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HI5030 -

Debating History (Core,20 Credits)

This module will introduce you to the main themes in Western historiography since the late nineteenth century (broadly speaking, the professional era). Within a largely chronological framework, the first half of the module will introduce you to significant approaches to the study of history, including empiricism, the Whig interpretation, Marxist approaches, cultural history, the postmodern approach, and the transnational turn. The second half of the module examines key historiographical controversies, enabling students to engage deeply with examples of the ways in which historians disagree and debate key concepts in history (for example, factors influencing historical change).

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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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HI5035 -

Divisive Pasts: Legacies of Conflict and Oppression in the 20th and 21st Centuries (Optional,20 Credits)

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.

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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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HI5039 -

At Home in America: Society, Politics and Environment in the Home, 1860 to the present (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will consider the wider social, political and environmental factors that shaped where, how, and in what type of home Americans have lived since 1860. Within the module, you will look at the forces that transformed and challenged the boundaries of the American home---from debates about poverty and social welfare, to economic policies surrounding homeownership, the mechanisms of racial segregation, new sex and gender roles as well as the rise of domestic consumption and its impact on the environment. The module will introduce you to a range of American homes, from the suburban and model homes of the American dream to the tenement flats, trailer parks and make-shift homes of ‘skid row’ – which tell a different story about what it means to be ‘at home in America’.

The module will complicate definitions and understandings of the American home---revealing its contested meanings, construction, and lived experience across different races, genders and classes. In asking these questions the module shall probe how far being ‘at home in America’ has depended upon changing understandings of the home, and its relationship to American identity. Through the module, you will learn about developments in politics and policy as well as broader social, cultural and environmental transformations since 1860. The module will open you up to a broad range of material in American history, from key social policies such as the Federal Housing Act, to broader social changes including the gender revolution accelerated by new domestic technologies, for instance the washing machine. The module will be broadly chronological, but subjects will also be approached though key themes that span decades.

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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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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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HI5053 -

Travel Writing and Tourism in Modern Britain and Ireland (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 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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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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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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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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AM6004 -

States of Nature: Environments and Peoples in the Americas (Optional,20 Credits)

Focusing on North and South America, this module examines the interaction between humans and the environment throughout history. We will discuss the ways in which various peoples experienced their environment: how they attempted to change it, how they were limited by it, and how they thought about nature. In doing so, we will consider historical change at several levels:

1. Material and ecological: the physical changes that humans in the American have wrought over the past 10,000 years.

2. Social and political: the connection between peoples’ use of the environment and the way in which American societies developed.

3. Intellectual and ideological: how individuals and societies have understood nature at various points throughout history and how this understanding has shaped their actions.

You will find out about the relationship between humans and nature in the period before European expansion in the Americas and, following on from this, you will consider the ecological impact of European colonialism. The module content covers human activities such as farming and mining, but also the impact of floods, hurricanes and climate change. You will consider the spread of cities, the role of their hinterlands and the creation of national parks. In the final sections of the module, you will examine the manifold impacts of consumer culture (including waste and pollution) as well as the rise of environmentalist movements that were critical of humans’ ecological footprint.

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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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HI6006 -

The Black Panther Party (Optional,20 Credits)

The module examines the history and significance of the Black Panther Party (BPP), a radical protest group formed in Oakland, California in 1966. It locates the BPP within its intellectual, political, geographical, and social context, giving students the opportunity to engage with important texts that influenced the BPP while also considering the BPP’s contribution to ideas about political struggle. The module details the history of the BPP from formation until its decline into irrelevance in the late 1970s, spending considerable time focusing on key individuals such as Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, the FBI repression which resulted in the deaths of numerous BPP members, gender relations in the Party, and the BPP’s political and intellectual development. Students may start the module thinking that the BPP simply represented a violent response to African American oppression dominated by guns, leather jackets and Afro haircuts but they will end the module with a nuanced understanding of the profound contribution of the BPP to American history.

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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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HI6016 -

Italian Fascism (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about the emergence, development and nature of fascism in Italy. It examines the history of Italy and the nature of Italian politics and considers the ways in which problems of Italian nationhood may have contributed to the rise of Fascism in that country. It looks at the origins and development of Fascism in Italy, the 'intervention crisis' of 1914-1915, and the various strands that made up Italian Fascism. It considers the manner in which fascist parties came to power, the myth of the 'March on Rome,' and the consolidation of Fascist Power, which took place after the Matteotti Crisis. The module covers key issues in the development of the Fascist regime in Italy including: Fascist mass organisations, the 'Fascist Style, and consensus coercion and resistance under the regime. It will enable you to engage with the various debates and questions of interpretation raised by the course.

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HI6018 -

Peace, Love and Understanding: International Political Activism in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Optional,20 Credits)

This module tackles one overarching question: how did individuals, groups and associations try to change the world? In order to answer this question, you will examine political campaigns in the 19th/20th centuries and thus learn about key historical issues such as peace, justice and equality.

• PEACE. You will learn about efforts to avert the First World War, protests against nuclear weapons during the Cold War as well as the international movement against the Vietnam War.
• JUSTICE. You will examine how people fought for a fairer world – from campaigns against slavery and colonial atrocities in the age of empire to the promotion of human rights since 1945.
• EQUALITY. You will consider different quests for equality, covering issues such as women’s emancipation, workers’ rights and the struggle against racism.

The module covers a range of different developments, for instance international socialism and communism in the early 20th century, student protests in the 1960s, and ‘green’ activism since the 1970s. None of these phenomena were confined to one country – and you will therefore invited to consider the links between Britain, mainland Europe, the USA, and the wider world.

By focusing on individual cases, each session offers detailed insights into the ways that activists promoted their aims. You will be able to examine the methods of different groups and assess their relative failure or success.

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HI6020 -

'Europe's Greatest Killer: The Black Death, Ethnic Cleansing and Biological Warfare in the Late Medieval World' (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn how Europe was hit by a mass outbreak of plague known as the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century. Waves of plague continued to strike Europe every 10-15 years until the disease disappeared in the eighteenth century. Its effects were devastating and it impacted on almost every aspect of European society. Plague was closely linked to war and famine, and the combined effects of all three frequently led to periods of crisis and discord in Europe. It begins by examining the use of plague as a weapon of biological warfare and its subsequent spread around Europe. A deep-seated fear that plague was being deliberately spread emerged throughout Europe. In particular, Jews were accused of deliberately poisoning wells with the plague virus and their communities across Europe were exterminated as a result. In addition, witches, lepers, prostitutes and minority ethnic groups were also persecuted for spreading plague. After considering the social tensions unleashed by the appearance of the Black Death, the module will move on to examine the ways in which European societies sought to cope with the disease, including developments in public health, sanitation and medicine. It will examine the ways in which different European states responded to plague (especially England, France and Italy), as well comparing and contrasting Christian and Muslim reactions.

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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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HI6028 -

History Dissertation (Core,40 Credits)

In this module you will be provided with the skills to complete a dissertation on a topic that you will negotiate with your supervisor. The History dissertation represents the culmination of your undergraduate studies. It will enable you to apply the skills they have acquired at earlier levels to a discrete body of primary sources related to an identifiable area of historical enquiry. It is an exercise in research and is intended to develop your research skills and your ability to work independently. Dissertation topics will be supervised by an appropriate tutor, who will guide you through the various stages of formulating, researching and writing this substantial piece of work

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HI6030 -

Law and Order USA: Police, Prisons, and Protest in Modern America (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will explore the history of ‘law and order’ politics (broadly defined) in the United States since 1900. You will learn about the creation of the law enforcement and judicial state at the federal, state, and local level (including, for instance, the establishment of the FBI and the rise of the carceral state), and the social movements that resisted and challenged that state. The module will cover such diverse topics as Prohibition, the Stonewall riot and the early LGBTQ movement, the prison reform and prisoners’ rights movements, the War on Drugs, anti-death penalty activism, and Black Lives Matter. This module will deal with fundamental questions of order and justice, how they have been contested in American society, and how they have intersected with issues of race, class, and gender.

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HI6036 -

Holocaust Testimony and Cultural Memory (Optional,20 Credits)

Dori Laub and Shoshana Felman have claimed that the twentieth century was an ‘era of testimony’. This module addresses the ways survivors have attempted to bear witness to the Holocaust, the catastrophe at that century’s centre, and the cultural responses to that witness. We will consider how the tools and concepts of cultural analysis both speak to and are challenged by testimony, and how culture continues to work on the problem of representing the Holocaust. The course aims to enable students to consider the continuing impact of the Holocaust on the lives of its surviving witnesses and their children and how literature and films bear witness to it. To this end, the module draws on a variety of sources: video testimony, courtroom testimony, memoirs, diaries, different literary genres (novels, short stories, poems and graphic novels) and films.

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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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HI6038 -

History of Antisemitism (Optional,20 Credits)

This course will examine the history of antisemitism, prejudice against Jews. This particular form of bigotry has a long and complex history and unfortunately is still alive and well in nations around the world to including the UK and the US. Hatred of Jews originates from a diverse combination of ideologies, historical moments and, likewise, takes a variety of forms in different times and places. This course will introduce the concept from its earliest times and follow both the theoretical/philosophical thought and the very real displays and repercussions of antisemitism through history with a focus on Europe. We will also closely examine the phenomenon of Holocaust Denial and the resurgence of antisemitism in Europe. The driving objective behind each lesson will be to relate the history of antisemitism to its modern repercussions and continuing impacts.

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HI6039 -

The British Women's Suffrage Movement in History and Memory (Optional,20 Credits)

Amongst other things, the Representation of the People Act of 1918 gave women over the age 30, who lived in houses or on land with a rateable value of £5 or more, the vote. This was the culmination of decades of activism and campaigning by different individuals, groups, and organisations and 2018 saw a wide range of events commemorating the centenary of the Bill’s passing. Yet the Representation of the People Act did not give women the vote on an equal basis to men, and it only enfranchised approximately 2/3rd of adult women. Over the course of the module you will identify the key actors of the suffrage movement and analyse the sometimes radically different motivations and methods they employed in securing partial female enfranchisement. You will also consider how these actors and their campaigns have been remembered and memorialised – or indeed, how they have been forgotten. This module draws on a wide variety of sources including film, photographs, newspapers, documentaries, memoirs, poetry, plays, exhibition guides, novels, biographies and posters, to understand whose story has been remember, whose has been forgotten and how the narrative of female enfranchisement has been shaped.

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HI6040 -

Nicaragua in Revolution, 1979-1990 (Optional,20 Credits)

In July 1979 a broad-based opposition movement led by a small group of young guerrillas - the ‘Sandinistas’ - overthrew the Somoza dictatorship which had ruled Nicaragua for 43 years. The euphoria of triumph quickly soured, as the new Sandinista government faced division at home and aggression from overseas, in the form of a US-funded proxy conflict, known as the ‘Contra War’. In this module, you will learn how ordinary Nicaraguans experienced the revolutionary decade by working with a wide range of sources, including memoirs, poetry, and murals. You will draw on testimonios and oral histories to critically evaluate the impact of the revolution’s programmes in education, agrarian reform, and women’s rights; and you will explore the Contra War in the context of the wider Cold War struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. Finally, you will use your detailed knowledge of the period to assess the relative importance of a number of factors, including US aggression and Sandinista failings, which together caused the eventual defeat of the revolution.

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HI6043 -

Creatures of Empire: an Animal History of British Colonialism (Optional,20 Credits)

In every empire, including the British case, non-human animals have been a crucial presence. Domesticated creatures, such as cows, pigs and sheep, accompanied European colonisers and assisted in the – often violent – processes that led to land clearances, changed environments, indigenous dispossession, and the spread of European settlement. This module seeks to give you a sense of the complicated and contested place of animals in empire. For some human colonisers, the hunting, killing, stuffing and exhibition of wild animals symbolised the European’s command of nature, and helped justify the whole imperial endeavour. But animals could also make trouble for empires: efforts to reproduce prized species and breeds did not always work; many animals spread disease; the growth of pest populations was a constant source of anxiety; and imported species could bring environmental changes that endangered both indigenous and European settlement.

This module considers this complicated interweaving of human and non-human histories in the British empire story, from the early modern settlements of seventeenth-century New England to the colonies of indirect rule in twentieth-century Africa. The first week will introduce you to the methodologies of animal history, and what an animal history of empire requires and might reveal. Thereafter, each week considers a species and a regional case study (e.g., rabbits/Australia; cows/southern Africa; tigers/British India). This simple structure introduces learners to themes as various as imperial masculinity and violence (hunting), ecological and social crises (epizootics), colonial community and family life (pet ownership), colonial urban history (pest control), imperial cultures in the metropole (taxidermy) and colonial national identity (animals as symbols). Importantly, the module is not exclusively structured around British and European viewpoints and actions: episodes such as the Xhosa cattle killing in 1850s southern Africa, to take one example, allows for a consideration of the differences and similarities in European and indigenous human-animal relationships.

You will learn about the relationship between empire, ecological degradation, and conservation through key themes such as ‘ecological imperialism’, ‘green imperialism’ and ‘animal agency’. Finally, this module will help you to historically contextualise current debates about human-animal relationships and the imperial roots of our ecological crisis; you may also recognise that the British empire experience provides examples and lessons that might help us rethink contemporary anthropocentric attitudes, and to develop healthier alternatives.

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MU6008 -

Tudor Music and Popular Culture (Optional,20 Credits)

This module explores the role of music in the everyday life in early modern England and the continuing influence of the Tudors and their music on twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture.

In the first part of the module, you will learn about popular musical participation and consumption from c.1525-1625 via the music of ballads, rounds, catches, street cried and stage songs. We will tracing popular music-making from streets to alehouses, to homes and theatres, and exploring music’s political, social, communal, and devotional functions.

In the second part of the module you will learn about how the Tudors (including Shakespeare) are represented and appropriated in twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture. We will explore both questions of the accuracy of the representation of Tudor music in historical film/ TV series, while also looking at how and why themes from Tudor history, music and theatre have been transplanted into twentieth/twenty-first century musicals (e.g., Six), TV shows, and popular music, and to what effect.

Throughout the module you will engage with current research in a range of disciplines including history, music, literature, film/TV studies, gender studies. Moreover you will develop skills in interpreting visual, textual, and musical sources in light of their historical context and critically evaluating representations of the past in popular culture and the appropriation of the past to serve present concerns.

(No musical literacy is required for this module)

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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.

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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HI4004 -

A Disunited Kingdom? The British and Irish Isles since 1689 (Core,20 Credits)

This module offers you a thematic survey of Britain in the transformative period since 1689. The module is intended to provide you with a conceptual treatment of the development of British society to complement other modules. By examining 11 key British historical figures it provides students with a broad overview from the Glorious Revolution to current debates on immigration and national identity, drawing attention to key themes and debates. It encourages the development of the historian’s skills of analysis. Among the key themes covered are: national identity and the making of a nation; the transformation of the system of production; the transformation of patterns of reproduction (including population and occupational change); transformations in systems of governance, power, protest and social policy; the transformation of popular culture and ritual; empire, immigration and the Britishness debate; and war, political and social change in the twentieth century. Throughout the module you will be exposed to the tensions and contests that existed between different views of Britain and Britishness: for instance between frontiers and centres; between ‘enlightened’ and popular cultures; and between the politics of parliament and the politics of the street.

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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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AD5011 -

Humanities Study Abroad (60 credit) (Optional,60 Credits)

The Study Abroad module is a semester based 60 credit module which is available on degree courses which facilitate study abroad within the programme. You will undertake a semester abroad at a partner university equivalent to 60 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 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 and, where appropriate, complementary activities as agreed between the student and module tutor.

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 module as part of the overall assessment.

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AM5003 -

The American West (Optional,20 Credits)

Ever watched a Western film? Heard about the American frontier? Wondered how westward expansion helped redefine the United States? This is the module for you. It focuses on the American West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, inviting you to consider its culture, history, politics, and society. Key themes include race, the Western movie genre, western literature, the frontier’s impact on the West and America in a wider sense, and the environment, all of which will be examined through different theoretical and methodological approaches.

Learning about the different ways in which we can see, understand and explain the West will provide you with a better range of tools to form your own understanding and explanation of what we can observe in the world today. For example, considering Western movies will encourage you to think afresh about American violence, civilization, and gender. Analysis of the frontier will develop your understanding of American progress, masculinity, and racism. Thinking about the western environment will prompt you to reassess the relationship between our natural environment and society.

At a theoretical level, this team-taught module will introduce you to the concept of ‘place’ within a framework informed by the multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches of American Studies. In this, it should challenge you to consider the way that History interacts with, for example, Film or Literature, and surprise you by encouraging you to rethink your prior assumptions about the American Experience. You’ll never think about America in the same way again, we promise.

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HI5006 -

Slavery, Sectionalism and Manifest Destiny (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will assess the importance of slavery and Manifest Destiny in the rise of American sectionalism from the end of the American War of Independence (1783) to 1850. This sectionalism created a political, social, and cultural atmosphere in the US which laid the basis for the crises of the 1850s and the Civil War. Slavery was the major issue which the Founders left unsolved in the aftermath of independence from Great Britain. As a result, it continued to divide the United States through the early republic and antebellum periods. Manifest Destiny was supposed to bring the sections together by uniting them in a quest to expand the United States westward. Ironically, Manifest Destiny exasperated the slavery issue and divisions between the North and the South. You will also study historiography of this period throughout the semester and you will be expected to become familiar with it. Students are expected to study relevant primary documents. This module will build specifically on the basic information learned in the early sections of the level-4 From Sea to Shining Sea. It will equip you to think critically about academic literature, primary sources, and historical interpretation.

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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. 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).

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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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HI5017 -

Into the Dark Valley: Europe, 1919-1939 (Optional,20 Credits)

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’.

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HI5020 -

Inquisition and Discovery: Myths and Realities of Late Medieval Spain (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, and between indigenous civilisations and conquistadores in the New World. You will learn about Spain’s Christian and Imperial mandates and about the discovery of America and the development of the New World by using a wide range of translated primary sources, which will include, amongst many others, the archives of the Spanish Inquisition and Christopher Columbus’s logbooks and letters. You will also be able to evaluate the role of propaganda (Black Legend and White Legend) when assessing your own perceptions about the key events that took place in the late medieval Hispanic world, and how these changed universal history forever.

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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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HI5030 -

Debating History (Core,20 Credits)

This module will introduce you to the main themes in Western historiography since the late nineteenth century (broadly speaking, the professional era). Within a largely chronological framework, the first half of the module will introduce you to significant approaches to the study of history, including empiricism, the Whig interpretation, Marxist approaches, cultural history, the postmodern approach, and the transnational turn. The second half of the module examines key historiographical controversies, enabling students to engage deeply with examples of the ways in which historians disagree and debate key concepts in history (for example, factors influencing historical change).

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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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HI5035 -

Divisive Pasts: Legacies of Conflict and Oppression in the 20th and 21st Centuries (Optional,20 Credits)

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.

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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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HI5039 -

At Home in America: Society, Politics and Environment in the Home, 1860 to the present (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will consider the wider social, political and environmental factors that shaped where, how, and in what type of home Americans have lived since 1860. Within the module, you will look at the forces that transformed and challenged the boundaries of the American home---from debates about poverty and social welfare, to economic policies surrounding homeownership, the mechanisms of racial segregation, new sex and gender roles as well as the rise of domestic consumption and its impact on the environment. The module will introduce you to a range of American homes, from the suburban and model homes of the American dream to the tenement flats, trailer parks and make-shift homes of ‘skid row’ – which tell a different story about what it means to be ‘at home in America’.

The module will complicate definitions and understandings of the American home---revealing its contested meanings, construction, and lived experience across different races, genders and classes. In asking these questions the module shall probe how far being ‘at home in America’ has depended upon changing understandings of the home, and its relationship to American identity. Through the module, you will learn about developments in politics and policy as well as broader social, cultural and environmental transformations since 1860. The module will open you up to a broad range of material in American history, from key social policies such as the Federal Housing Act, to broader social changes including the gender revolution accelerated by new domestic technologies, for instance the washing machine. The module will be broadly chronological, but subjects will also be approached though key themes that span decades.

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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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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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HI5053 -

Travel Writing and Tourism in Modern Britain and Ireland (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 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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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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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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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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AM6004 -

States of Nature: Environments and Peoples in the Americas (Optional,20 Credits)

Focusing on North and South America, this module examines the interaction between humans and the environment throughout history. We will discuss the ways in which various peoples experienced their environment: how they attempted to change it, how they were limited by it, and how they thought about nature. In doing so, we will consider historical change at several levels:

1. Material and ecological: the physical changes that humans in the American have wrought over the past 10,000 years.

2. Social and political: the connection between peoples’ use of the environment and the way in which American societies developed.

3. Intellectual and ideological: how individuals and societies have understood nature at various points throughout history and how this understanding has shaped their actions.

You will find out about the relationship between humans and nature in the period before European expansion in the Americas and, following on from this, you will consider the ecological impact of European colonialism. The module content covers human activities such as farming and mining, but also the impact of floods, hurricanes and climate change. You will consider the spread of cities, the role of their hinterlands and the creation of national parks. In the final sections of the module, you will examine the manifold impacts of consumer culture (including waste and pollution) as well as the rise of environmentalist movements that were critical of humans’ ecological footprint.

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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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HI6006 -

The Black Panther Party (Optional,20 Credits)

The module examines the history and significance of the Black Panther Party (BPP), a radical protest group formed in Oakland, California in 1966. It locates the BPP within its intellectual, political, geographical, and social context, giving students the opportunity to engage with important texts that influenced the BPP while also considering the BPP’s contribution to ideas about political struggle. The module details the history of the BPP from formation until its decline into irrelevance in the late 1970s, spending considerable time focusing on key individuals such as Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, the FBI repression which resulted in the deaths of numerous BPP members, gender relations in the Party, and the BPP’s political and intellectual development. Students may start the module thinking that the BPP simply represented a violent response to African American oppression dominated by guns, leather jackets and Afro haircuts but they will end the module with a nuanced understanding of the profound contribution of the BPP to American history.

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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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HI6016 -

Italian Fascism (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn about the emergence, development and nature of fascism in Italy. It examines the history of Italy and the nature of Italian politics and considers the ways in which problems of Italian nationhood may have contributed to the rise of Fascism in that country. It looks at the origins and development of Fascism in Italy, the 'intervention crisis' of 1914-1915, and the various strands that made up Italian Fascism. It considers the manner in which fascist parties came to power, the myth of the 'March on Rome,' and the consolidation of Fascist Power, which took place after the Matteotti Crisis. The module covers key issues in the development of the Fascist regime in Italy including: Fascist mass organisations, the 'Fascist Style, and consensus coercion and resistance under the regime. It will enable you to engage with the various debates and questions of interpretation raised by the course.

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HI6018 -

Peace, Love and Understanding: International Political Activism in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Optional,20 Credits)

This module tackles one overarching question: how did individuals, groups and associations try to change the world? In order to answer this question, you will examine political campaigns in the 19th/20th centuries and thus learn about key historical issues such as peace, justice and equality.

• PEACE. You will learn about efforts to avert the First World War, protests against nuclear weapons during the Cold War as well as the international movement against the Vietnam War.
• JUSTICE. You will examine how people fought for a fairer world – from campaigns against slavery and colonial atrocities in the age of empire to the promotion of human rights since 1945.
• EQUALITY. You will consider different quests for equality, covering issues such as women’s emancipation, workers’ rights and the struggle against racism.

The module covers a range of different developments, for instance international socialism and communism in the early 20th century, student protests in the 1960s, and ‘green’ activism since the 1970s. None of these phenomena were confined to one country – and you will therefore invited to consider the links between Britain, mainland Europe, the USA, and the wider world.

By focusing on individual cases, each session offers detailed insights into the ways that activists promoted their aims. You will be able to examine the methods of different groups and assess their relative failure or success.

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HI6020 -

'Europe's Greatest Killer: The Black Death, Ethnic Cleansing and Biological Warfare in the Late Medieval World' (Optional,20 Credits)

In this module you will learn how Europe was hit by a mass outbreak of plague known as the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century. Waves of plague continued to strike Europe every 10-15 years until the disease disappeared in the eighteenth century. Its effects were devastating and it impacted on almost every aspect of European society. Plague was closely linked to war and famine, and the combined effects of all three frequently led to periods of crisis and discord in Europe. It begins by examining the use of plague as a weapon of biological warfare and its subsequent spread around Europe. A deep-seated fear that plague was being deliberately spread emerged throughout Europe. In particular, Jews were accused of deliberately poisoning wells with the plague virus and their communities across Europe were exterminated as a result. In addition, witches, lepers, prostitutes and minority ethnic groups were also persecuted for spreading plague. After considering the social tensions unleashed by the appearance of the Black Death, the module will move on to examine the ways in which European societies sought to cope with the disease, including developments in public health, sanitation and medicine. It will examine the ways in which different European states responded to plague (especially England, France and Italy), as well comparing and contrasting Christian and Muslim reactions.

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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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HI6028 -

History Dissertation (Core,40 Credits)

In this module you will be provided with the skills to complete a dissertation on a topic that you will negotiate with your supervisor. The History dissertation represents the culmination of your undergraduate studies. It will enable you to apply the skills they have acquired at earlier levels to a discrete body of primary sources related to an identifiable area of historical enquiry. It is an exercise in research and is intended to develop your research skills and your ability to work independently. Dissertation topics will be supervised by an appropriate tutor, who will guide you through the various stages of formulating, researching and writing this substantial piece of work

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HI6030 -

Law and Order USA: Police, Prisons, and Protest in Modern America (Optional,20 Credits)

This module will explore the history of ‘law and order’ politics (broadly defined) in the United States since 1900. You will learn about the creation of the law enforcement and judicial state at the federal, state, and local level (including, for instance, the establishment of the FBI and the rise of the carceral state), and the social movements that resisted and challenged that state. The module will cover such diverse topics as Prohibition, the Stonewall riot and the early LGBTQ movement, the prison reform and prisoners’ rights movements, the War on Drugs, anti-death penalty activism, and Black Lives Matter. This module will deal with fundamental questions of order and justice, how they have been contested in American society, and how they have intersected with issues of race, class, and gender.

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HI6036 -

Holocaust Testimony and Cultural Memory (Optional,20 Credits)

Dori Laub and Shoshana Felman have claimed that the twentieth century was an ‘era of testimony’. This module addresses the ways survivors have attempted to bear witness to the Holocaust, the catastrophe at that century’s centre, and the cultural responses to that witness. We will consider how the tools and concepts of cultural analysis both speak to and are challenged by testimony, and how culture continues to work on the problem of representing the Holocaust. The course aims to enable students to consider the continuing impact of the Holocaust on the lives of its surviving witnesses and their children and how literature and films bear witness to it. To this end, the module draws on a variety of sources: video testimony, courtroom testimony, memoirs, diaries, different literary genres (novels, short stories, poems and graphic novels) and films.

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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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HI6038 -

History of Antisemitism (Optional,20 Credits)

This course will examine the history of antisemitism, prejudice against Jews. This particular form of bigotry has a long and complex history and unfortunately is still alive and well in nations around the world to including the UK and the US. Hatred of Jews originates from a diverse combination of ideologies, historical moments and, likewise, takes a variety of forms in different times and places. This course will introduce the concept from its earliest times and follow both the theoretical/philosophical thought and the very real displays and repercussions of antisemitism through history with a focus on Europe. We will also closely examine the phenomenon of Holocaust Denial and the resurgence of antisemitism in Europe. The driving objective behind each lesson will be to relate the history of antisemitism to its modern repercussions and continuing impacts.

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HI6039 -

The British Women's Suffrage Movement in History and Memory (Optional,20 Credits)

Amongst other things, the Representation of the People Act of 1918 gave women over the age 30, who lived in houses or on land with a rateable value of £5 or more, the vote. This was the culmination of decades of activism and campaigning by different individuals, groups, and organisations and 2018 saw a wide range of events commemorating the centenary of the Bill’s passing. Yet the Representation of the People Act did not give women the vote on an equal basis to men, and it only enfranchised approximately 2/3rd of adult women. Over the course of the module you will identify the key actors of the suffrage movement and analyse the sometimes radically different motivations and methods they employed in securing partial female enfranchisement. You will also consider how these actors and their campaigns have been remembered and memorialised – or indeed, how they have been forgotten. This module draws on a wide variety of sources including film, photographs, newspapers, documentaries, memoirs, poetry, plays, exhibition guides, novels, biographies and posters, to understand whose story has been remember, whose has been forgotten and how the narrative of female enfranchisement has been shaped.

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HI6040 -

Nicaragua in Revolution, 1979-1990 (Optional,20 Credits)

In July 1979 a broad-based opposition movement led by a small group of young guerrillas - the ‘Sandinistas’ - overthrew the Somoza dictatorship which had ruled Nicaragua for 43 years. The euphoria of triumph quickly soured, as the new Sandinista government faced division at home and aggression from overseas, in the form of a US-funded proxy conflict, known as the ‘Contra War’. In this module, you will learn how ordinary Nicaraguans experienced the revolutionary decade by working with a wide range of sources, including memoirs, poetry, and murals. You will draw on testimonios and oral histories to critically evaluate the impact of the revolution’s programmes in education, agrarian reform, and women’s rights; and you will explore the Contra War in the context of the wider Cold War struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. Finally, you will use your detailed knowledge of the period to assess the relative importance of a number of factors, including US aggression and Sandinista failings, which together caused the eventual defeat of the revolution.

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HI6043 -

Creatures of Empire: an Animal History of British Colonialism (Optional,20 Credits)

In every empire, including the British case, non-human animals have been a crucial presence. Domesticated creatures, such as cows, pigs and sheep, accompanied European colonisers and assisted in the – often violent – processes that led to land clearances, changed environments, indigenous dispossession, and the spread of European settlement. This module seeks to give you a sense of the complicated and contested place of animals in empire. For some human colonisers, the hunting, killing, stuffing and exhibition of wild animals symbolised the European’s command of nature, and helped justify the whole imperial endeavour. But animals could also make trouble for empires: efforts to reproduce prized species and breeds did not always work; many animals spread disease; the growth of pest populations was a constant source of anxiety; and imported species could bring environmental changes that endangered both indigenous and European settlement.

This module considers this complicated interweaving of human and non-human histories in the British empire story, from the early modern settlements of seventeenth-century New England to the colonies of indirect rule in twentieth-century Africa. The first week will introduce you to the methodologies of animal history, and what an animal history of empire requires and might reveal. Thereafter, each week considers a species and a regional case study (e.g., rabbits/Australia; cows/southern Africa; tigers/British India). This simple structure introduces learners to themes as various as imperial masculinity and violence (hunting), ecological and social crises (epizootics), colonial community and family life (pet ownership), colonial urban history (pest control), imperial cultures in the metropole (taxidermy) and colonial national identity (animals as symbols). Importantly, the module is not exclusively structured around British and European viewpoints and actions: episodes such as the Xhosa cattle killing in 1850s southern Africa, to take one example, allows for a consideration of the differences and similarities in European and indigenous human-animal relationships.

You will learn about the relationship between empire, ecological degradation, and conservation through key themes such as ‘ecological imperialism’, ‘green imperialism’ and ‘animal agency’. Finally, this module will help you to historically contextualise current debates about human-animal relationships and the imperial roots of our ecological crisis; you may also recognise that the British empire experience provides examples and lessons that might help us rethink contemporary anthropocentric attitudes, and to develop healthier alternatives.

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MU6008 -

Tudor Music and Popular Culture (Optional,20 Credits)

This module explores the role of music in the everyday life in early modern England and the continuing influence of the Tudors and their music on twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture.

In the first part of the module, you will learn about popular musical participation and consumption from c.1525-1625 via the music of ballads, rounds, catches, street cried and stage songs. We will tracing popular music-making from streets to alehouses, to homes and theatres, and exploring music’s political, social, communal, and devotional functions.

In the second part of the module you will learn about how the Tudors (including Shakespeare) are represented and appropriated in twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture. We will explore both questions of the accuracy of the representation of Tudor music in historical film/ TV series, while also looking at how and why themes from Tudor history, music and theatre have been transplanted into twentieth/twenty-first century musicals (e.g., Six), TV shows, and popular music, and to what effect.

Throughout the module you will engage with current research in a range of disciplines including history, music, literature, film/TV studies, gender studies. Moreover you will develop skills in interpreting visual, textual, and musical sources in light of their historical context and critically evaluating representations of the past in popular culture and the appropriation of the past to serve present concerns.

(No musical literacy is required for this module)

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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 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 starting in 2023 are primarily delivered via on-campus face to face learning but may include elements of online learning. We continue to monitor government and local authority guidance in relation to Covid-19 and we are ready and able to flex accordingly to ensure the health and safety of our students and staff.

Contact time is subject to increase or decrease in line with additional restrictions imposed by the government or the University in the interest of maintaining the health and safety and wellbeing of students, staff, and visitors, potentially to a full online offer, should further restrictions be deemed necessary in future. Our online activity will be delivered through Blackboard Ultra, enabling collaboration, connection and engagement with materials and people.

 

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