Are you interested in world history? Would you like to trace the development of societies from antiquity to modernity? On our joint honours programme Ancient, Medieval and Modern History, you gain practical and broad insight into the study of history across millennia.
You learn how to approach and critically analyse many types of sources within their proper contexts, and gain an understanding of exactly how they have impacted upon different individuals, groups and events – both in the past and in the present day.
The programme draws upon the research and teaching expertise of both the Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies and the School of History. You benefit from the wide range of expertise and the interdisciplinary culture across departments. You can also choose to study ancient languages, literature and mythology, as well as drama and philosophy.
In your first year of study, you are introduced to the principles of historical study and research. You explore ancient civilisations and may also engage with other time periods.
During all stages of your studies you have the opportunity to choose specialist modules that suit your interest. Our wide range of modules include topics like the British Empire, World War One and Two, ancient Egypt, and the crusades.
In your final year of study, there is an option to take a dissertation module in History on a subject of your choice or you can complete an archaeological project. This allows you to focus in detail on an area you are particularly passionate about.
You may use our specialist laboratory for cleaning and sorting archaeological finds and our specialist equipment for geophysical surveys, photography, 3D laser scanning and microscopy. Our archaeology technician is on hand to help you as you work.
Kent’s Templeman Library gives you access to a wide range of topical journals and books in hard copy and digital format. In addition, we host the British Cartoon Archive, an illuminating resource for studying recent history. Our Special Collections and Archives also hold a rare and complete set of British official histories of both world wars.
You can gain easy access to international collections in London and local collections such as the Canterbury Cathedral Library, too.
Your designated academic advisor provides guidance for your studies and academic development. Our Student Learning Advisory Centre also offers useful workshops on topics like essay writing and academic referencing.
You may want to join one of the many student-led cultural societies at Kent, including:
We work closely with external organisations, such as the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, and you may have the opportunity to take part in fieldwork activities.
The University will consider applications from students offering a wide range of qualifications. Typical requirements are listed below. Students offering alternative qualifications should contact us for further advice.
Please note that meeting this typical offer/minimum requirement does not guarantee an offer being made.Please also see our general entry requirements.
If you’ve taken exams under the new GCSE grading system, please see our conversion table to convert your GCSE grades.
BBB including History or Classical Civilisation or Ancient History or Medieval History at B
The University will not necessarily make conditional offers to all Access candidates but will continue to assess them on an individual basis.
If we make you an offer, you will need to obtain/pass the overall Access to Higher Education Diploma and may also be required to obtain a proportion of the total level 3 credits and/or credits in particular subjects at merit grade or above.
The University will consider applicants holding BTEC National Diploma and Extended National Diploma Qualifications (QCF; NQF; OCR) on a case-by-case basis. Please contact us for further advice on your individual circumstances. A typical offer would be to achieve DDM plus an A-level in either History, Classical Civilisation, Ancient History or Medieval History at B.
34 points overall or 15 points at HL including History 5 at HL or 6 at SL
The University welcomes applications from international students. Our international recruitment team can guide you on entry requirements. See our International Student website for further information about entry requirements for your country.
However, please note that international fee-paying students cannot undertake a part-time programme due to visa restrictions.
If you need to increase your level of qualification ready for undergraduate study, we offer a number of International Foundation Programmes.
For more advice about applying to Kent, you can meet our staff at a range of international events.
Please see our English language entry requirements web page.
Please note that if you are required to meet an English language condition, we offer a number of 'pre-sessional' courses in English for Academic Purposes. You attend these courses before starting your degree programme.
Duration: 3 years full-time, 6 years part-time
The following modules are indicative of those offered on this programme. This listing is based on the current curriculum and may change year to year in response to new curriculum developments and innovation.
On most programmes, you study a combination of compulsory and optional modules. You may also be able to take ‘elective’ modules from other programmes so you can customise your programme and explore other subjects that interest you.
This module is an introduction to Ancient Greek history, culture, and literature. Spanning almost two thousand years from the Bronze Age Mycenaeans to the Greeks living under the Roman Empire, classes will cover the major events, developments, and themes of Greek history and introduce you to the key evidence. You will also be introduced to the major works and genres of Greek literature. You will also be asked to consider and discuss the role of literature as a vehicle for public debate throughout Greek history, and its treatment of themes such as justice, religion, rationalism, violence, war, displacement, the body, sexuality, and gender.
This module is an introduction to Roman history, culture, and literature. Spanning almost 1,500 years from pre-Roman Italy to Late Antiquity, classes will cover the major events, developments, and themes of Roman history and introduce you to the key evidence. You will also be introduced to the major works and genres of Roman literature. You will also be asked to consider and discuss the role of literature as a vehicle for public debate throughout Roman history, and its treatment of themes such as power, justice, war and peace, class and social mobility, identity, slavery, and gender roles.
This module has two aims: 1) to contribute towards equipping the students with the necessary practical and intellectual skills for them to think and write as historians at an undergraduate level; 2) to encourage them to think reflectively and critically about the nature of the historical discipline, its epistemological claims, and why we, as historians, do what we do in the way we do it.
It will focus on the process of 'getting used to' undergraduate history; the difference between university life from school/college. These sessions are reinforced with inhouse study skills sessions. This will be reinforced through the seminar teaching in the remainder of the module.
The module identifies and explores three main areas of history, asking: what is medieval history; what is early modern history; what is modern history? Students will also explore different central historical themes and approaches in historical scholarship, such as Marxism or nationalism, thereby introducing them to history at university level at both a practical and conceptual level. This will cover the development of university history in the broad sweep of history from approximately the twelfth century to the late twentieth century. It will also consider the impact of the Social Sciences on the historical profession during the twentieth century.
The seminars will reinforce these sessions through discussion of selected readings on relevant topics. Students will also study how to use and analyse a primary source and a variety of historical methodologies.
Whether cruel or funny, hostile speech has a pervasive presence in the wealth of textual evidence from classical antiquity. Insulting communications, both formal and informal, reveal social values in an unusually succinct way, while their dependence on situation and context presents complex interpretative challenges.
In this module, insults form the basis for a wide-ranging investigation of classical literature inviting comparison of their literary treatment in different works and/or genres. The module is designed to accommodate various selections of material, which may include Greek literature, Roman literature, or a combination of both. It provides a variety of examples of invective to show the diversity of classical literature and, through the analysis of these examples, raise current debates in classical literary studies. So, for example, the insults found in Catullus may be used to explore the issue of authorial persona and 'sincerity'. Topics covered may include obscenity, debate and competition, laws governing slander and treason, the aesthetics of beauty and ugliness, construction of social categorisations (gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and status), and the conventions of specific genres.
This module gives students a foundation in Ancient Greek, covering the fundamentals of morphology and syntax. By the end of the module, students will be able to read, comprehend, and translate simple sentences and short passages of Ancient Greek.
This module is designed for students who have already acquired some fundamentals of Ancient Greek morphology and syntax. It aims to introduce students to reading and understanding complex sentence and longer passages by providing them with more knowledge of grammar and syntax.
This module gives students a foundation in Latin, covering the fundamentals of morphology and syntax. By the end of the module, students will be able to read, comprehend, and translate simple sentences and short passages of Latin.
This module is designed for students who have already acquired some fundamentals of Latin morphology and syntax. It aims to introduce students to reading and understanding complex sentence and longer passages by providing them with more knowledge of grammar and syntax.
This module provides a general introduction to myth in the ancient world. Scholarship on approaches to mythology will inform the analysis of myth in its ancient setting. The curriculum will be designed to introduce students to a working repertoire of a large span of ancient (e.g. Greek) mythology and to its meanings and functions within its original context. A selection of case-study myths (represented in literature and/or iconography) will be used to examine the potential meanings and social functions of myth in general.
This module introduces the history of the wider Mediterranean from (roughly) the rise of Macedon to the destruction of Carthage. Focusing on the period's key events, main players, and various cultural traditions, the module enables students to widen their perspective on ancient history beyond Greece and Rome. The lectures, seminars, and readings are based around the history, archaeology, and literature of various ancient societies that met, fought, traded, and interacted culturally. These include the Persians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Macedonians, Greeks, Bactrians, Mauryans, and Romans.
The lectures are thematic, following a loosely chronological framework. The module kicks off with a survey of Near Eastern history to explore notions of empire, city state, and cultural interaction. The survey continues by introducing further ancient societies through the lens of thematic topics. The lectures form the basis for broader discussion of the transfer of cultural ideas across the ancient world. Topics include, among other things, the Greco-Buddhist art of the Hellenistic Far East and the legacy of the Persian empire across the Eurasian continent.
The seminars focus on training in the use and interpretation of ancient literary, documentary and material evidence. This includes written evidence, inscriptions and papyri, coins, and art and architecture. Where appropriate, discussion of these sources in the seminars will be used to introduce major debates in the study of the ancient Mediterranean. This includes questions about the legacies of the ancient world and their connections to contemporary debates around orientalism and colonialism.
This module is intended as an introduction for those new to studying Egyptology, but also those who want to pursue the subject mainly from an archaeological point of view. It will explore the diversity of methodologies and debates concerning Egyptian archaeology. In doing so, it will introduce students to aspects of anthropological and archaeological theory, as well as the relationship between theory, fieldwork, and the resulting interpretation. The aim is to introduce the archaeology of ancient Egypt and its culture, monuments, and civilisation.
The course will develop an understanding of the wide range of archaeological material encountered at Egyptian sites, demonstrating how the study of material culture greatly contributes to the understanding of important aspects of ancient Egyptian culture (history, geography, material remains and society). The history of Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology will also be examined, including discussion of new excavations in Egypt, connecting recent work with the results of projects spanning the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The module introduces students to a broad range of material and themes relevant to the history of medicine, highlighting changes and continuities in medical practice and theory as well as in medical institutions and professional conduct. The section on ancient medicine addresses the role of Greek writers such as Hippocrates. The section on medieval medicine focuses on major epidemics, the origins of medical institutions, and the role of medical care and cure in the context of social and demographic changes. In particular, this section addresses the role of the Black Death and subsequent plagues, as well as the history of hospitals. The section on early modern and modern medicine explores the development of psychiatry and the asylum system in the 18th century, the rise of public health and the welfare state, and the role of social Darwinism and eugenics in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the late 19th and 20th centuries, the course will look at the role of gender and sexuality, medicine and modern warfare, health and disability, and modern medicine and medical ethics.
The module will focus primarily on the period from the 18th century onwards but will begin with an outline treatment of the British colonies in North America from initial European settlement. Interactions between Native American, African, African-American and European populations will be emphasised in the colonial period. Thereafter the module examines the first anti-colonial revolution in modern history and the creation of a new nation and concludes with the reconstitution of the nation after a bloody civil war and on the eve of large-scale industrialisation.
Themes include the causes and consequences of the Revolution, the new political system, the development of mass democracy, economic development and territorial expansion into the West, reform movements, sectional conflict between North and South, slavery, the Civil War and the re-establishment of a national order during Reconstruction.
The module is an introduction to the major themes, events and debates in U.S. history from 1880 until the present day. It will consider this period of domestic and international upheaval and trace key themes and ideas, including the connections between domestic and international developments, the evolution of the U.S. presidency, industrialization and reform, U.S. imperialism and isolationism, the growth of the national security state in the Cold War, post-war conformity versus 1960s radicalism as well as conservative politics in the 1970s and 1980s.
What happened when the Roman Empire collapsed? When did countries like England, France and Germany come into being? How violent were the Vikings? What was the Norman Conquest all about? Were the 'Dark Ages' really as grim as they are often made out to be? This module provides an introduction to the history of early medieval Europe (c.400–c.1100), examining the major political events and social changes that took place across this period. Along the way, we shall consider key aspects of warfare, religious life and intellectual culture. Students will obtain a clear understanding of the outlines of early medieval history between the end of the Roman Empire and the sweeping transformations of the late eleventh century, as well as a sense of what daily life was like for most people and of the types of evidence historians can use to understand this period. The weekly lectures guide students through the module, and seminars provide opportunities to explore key debates and historical problems in more detail through the analysis of primary sources.
This module is a survey of medieval Europe from c.1000 to c.1450. It includes elements of political, institutional, religious, social and cultural history.
The module is intended to provide students with a foundation that will allow them to make the most of other courses in European history, particularly those focusing on the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, by equipping them with a grounding in geography and chronology, as well as in a variety of approaches to the study of history.
This module examines the principal themes of the political, social and cultural history of Britain during the Victorian era (c. 1830 –1900). This period saw the building of one of the world's greatest empires, the transformation of Britain from a rural society into the world’s first and leading industrial nation, and the development of a modern state and new forms of democratic participation.
Europe's age of Revolutions 1700-1850 created our modern political and social system. It was time when the ancien régime was compromised and a completely new system of government, administration and law was put in place. This module will focus on the impact of Enlightened absolutism, and revolutionary reforms, on Europe during this vital turning point. Topics covered will include: Enlightened absolutism; Russia, Prussia; the Habsburg Monarchy; Poland-Lithuania; the French revolution; the Napoleonic Empire; Spain; Congress of Vienna; France 1830 & 1848; the revolutions of 1848.
This module will offer a comparative study of wars in Europe from the French Revolutionary Wars to the Cold War. The module will adopt the 'war and society' approach to this topic and so will focus on the social composition and combat effectiveness of the armies concerned, as well as the causes of the wars, civil-military relations and the various peace treaties. There will also be discussion of these wars at the strategic and operational level. This module will consider the French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, Wars of Italian and German Unification (including the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars), First World War, Spanish Civil War, Second World War and Cold War. Students will thus gain an overview of the wars which shaped modern Europe and will also gain some insights into political and economic change in this period.
The course will provide a survey of the major events, themes and historiographical debates in modern British history from the early twentieth century to the 1990s. It will examine the roles of total war, imperialism and decolonisation, social welfare legislation, the advent of mass culture in shaping the nation. Subjects to be covered will include: crisis and reform in Edwardian Britain; politics and society in the Great War; stagnation and recovery in the interwar years; appeasement; the People's War, 1939-45; the welfare state; decolonisation; the affluent society and the politics of consensus; the end of consensus 1970-79; nationalism and devolution; Thatcher and the rolling back of the state; New Labour.
This module will provide a survey of the major events, themes and historiographical debates in early modern history from the Renaissance, through the Reformation to the Enlightenment. This period in European history witnessed the cultural and social upheaval of religious wars, the advent of print and the intellectual changes associated with Humanism, the formation of recognisably 'modern' nation states, and the beginnings of Europe's troubled engagement with the wider world. We situate Europe within a wider global context, examining how the experience of Europeans compared to that of people around the world.
This module will provide a survey of the major events in Eurasian history through the early modern period. It will cover the major social, cultural and religious changes in Europe including the Reformation and Counter Reformation, while also mapping the rise of the "gunpowder empires" of West and South Asia and the adoption of Shi'ism in Iran.
Throughout the course of human history, developments in science and technology have changed the way we interact with one another and with the world at large. This team-taught module will showcase the breadth and depth of expertise of the staff in History by exposing students to examples of technological advances from the medieval, early modern and modern periods, and encompassing diverse sub-fields such as military history, environmental history, and the history of medicine. Moreover, the ten technologies included in the module will each act as a lens through which students can understand broader historical trends and themes – including the rise of literacy and civil society, the expansion and reduction of empire, travel across and beyond the Earth, the fight for gender and race equality, and the social implications of an increasingly online and interconnected world.
This course explores the history of empires on a global scale. It challenges students to grasp the history of empires by examining their structures, instruments and consequences. The course will cover the history of empire from the sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. Themes will include the expansion of European empires (Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, Dutch and Belgian) in the Americas, Asia, the global rivalry for empires among European nations in the eighteenth century, the commercial expansion of the East India Companies in the Indian Ocean,, the expansion British colonies in India, slavery and the Abolition movement and the Revolt of 1857. It will provide students with a critical historical knowledge of imperialism and globalisation.
This course explores the history of empires on a global scale. It challenges students to grasp the history of empires by examining their structures, instruments and consequences. The course will cover the expansion of European empires from the end of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, in the age of decolonization. Topics include the conquest of Africa in the age of the so-called 'New Imperialism', the French and British Civilizing missions in Africa and Asia, the emergence of modern ideas of race, immigration, freedom struggles in Asia and Africa, and postcolonial cultural and political developments across the world. It will provide students with a critical historical knowledge of imperialism and globalisation and enable them to form a deep understanding of the postcolonial world.
Subjects to be covered will include: The Crimean War; The Franco-Prussian War and German unification; the origins of the First World War; the Treaty of Versailles; the League of Nations; the origins of the Second World War; the Cold War in Europe; the origins of the European Union; from détente in Europe to the fall of Communism.
You have the opportunity to select elective modules in this stage.
This module consists of an introduction to the study of the various indigenous languages and scripts of ancient Egypt from the earliest times to the Arab conquest (641 AD). During this period of approximately four thousand years the development of the native Egyptian tongue may be divided into five distinct phases, each of which may be called a separate language in its own right, Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, New Egyptian, Demotic and, finally, Coptic. A variety of writing systems were developed to record texts in these languages, depending on the function, social and presentational context and time period of the text: hieroglyphic, hieratic, abnormal hieratic, demotic and Coptic.
The module will first examine the origins of the ancient Egyptian language and its genetic relationship with other North-East African and Western Asian languages based on the latest results of historical linguistics. It will then focus on the development of Egyptian itself through the ages, highlighting its different stages and their particular characteristics. It will also examine the earliest uses and functions of writing in Egyptian society and the role played by writing in the social, economic and cultural development of this unique ancient civilisation. Finally, the module will concentrate on the Middle Egyptian language written in the hieroglyphic writing system and students will be taught to read and translate simple texts in this tongue and script.
This module examines in detail the history of the Roman Empire from the emergence of the Principate under Octavian/Augustus to the establishment of the Principate 2.0 under Trajan. It will also provide both a survey of a major period of Roman imperial history and an opportunity to study in greater depth the administrative, social, economic and religious developments of this period. Students will read widely from the ancient sources, historical, literary and documentary, and will be introduced to the inscriptional evidence for imperial history. This module will concentrate on the main administrative, social, economic and religious developments throughout the period rather than on the details of political and military history.
Students will read widely in the major ancient sources, including Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius, and will be introduced to the inscriptional and documentary evidence for imperial history.
The module covers the study of Roman art and architecture, including the close interpretation of works of art and buildings, and an investigation of the role of art and architecture within the wider Roman world. The geographical area covered will include both Rome and Italy, and provincial Roman sites and material. Aspects to be examined include context, dating, technique, styles and subject matter, and ideology including the role played by art in Roman society. Arranged broadly in chronological order, from the Republican to the late Roman period, the course gives an overview of the varied media and techniques used in Roman art and architecture and the changes in art style that occurred throughout the Roman period.
This module will explore Mediterranean life in the period 283-650, from the time of Diocletian and Constantine to the Arab Conquests covering the world of major figures such as Julian, Augustine, Justinian, and Mohammed. It will separate the complex changes of this period, which have often been lumped together in a single misleading model of 'decline'. Long-term phenomena, such as the centralisation of imperial power, the emergence of a Christian state, the collapse of the Eastern Empire, and the rise of Islam, remain legitimate topics of interest.
Different aspects of society will be explored, using textual, archaeological and iconographic evidence, covering such themes as the emperor and court, war, cities, the countryside, the economy, the end of paganism, and the rise of Christianity. These portraits will draw on the extraordinary preservation of sites and landscapes in North Africa and the East Mediterranean, where cities, villages and monasteries often stand as if they had only recently been abandoned. Rich stratigraphic evidence, from earthquake and abandonment deposits, also makes it possible to perceive the everyday life of the period in a way that is only true of Pompeii in earlier centuries. Students taking this course will develop an understanding of both the last flowering of Greek culture and the cultural foundations of the Middle Ages (in Europe, Byzantium and Islam), revealing an important chapter in our history, which is often ignored but is vital to grasp, to understand the legacy of Antiquity.
This module is concerned with the impact of the Classical World on ancient Egypt between Alexander's invasion and the Arab conquest, and on the nature and permanence of the brilliant hybrid civilisation which emerged under Greek and Roman rule.
Alexander entered Egypt as a liberator, but he and his successors created a colonial regime with Greek as the ruling language and Greeks as the ruling elite under their own law. Mercenaries were settled on reclaimed land, Greek cities were founded, especially Alexandria, one of the glories of the ancient world. An elaborate system of economic regulation maximised production to support warfare, city-building and display. The temples became a department of state. New cults were created to unite the two peoples and strengthen the regime. Native Egyptians showed their resentment in disaffection and rebellion. Roman rule (after the spectacular end of the Ptolemaic dynasty) was if anything harsher and more remote, and the rise of the Copts is often interpreted as an anti-Roman, anti-Classical movement.
Yet it is a mistake to see the relationship as wholly negative. Art and architecture flourished – most temples surviving today are the work of the Ptolemies. In civil service, army, business the new regime offered avenues to advancement for native Egyptians. A genuinely bilingual upper class emerged, able to make significant contributions to Classical culture. The ancient religion retained its prestige and was adopted by many Greeks, spreading far outside Egypt. Coptic culture was as much Classical as Egyptian, and Greek language long survived the Arab conquest. Sources for this vivid, complex and often neglected phase of Egyptian history are rich and varied: temples, tombs, remains of cities and villages, mummies, inscriptions, sculpture, coins, and an extraordinary range of papyrus documents, able to offer unique insights into an ancient civilisation.
This module reviews texts relating to sexual behaviour attitudes and relationships throughout Latin Literature, raising questions about both the perception of sexuality in antiquity and how perception was translated into social and political relationships. Because of the nature of its coverage, it can be counted as either a literature or a social history course, and is intended as a wide-ranging complement to both. The module relies on primary texts from a variety of literary genres, from Epic and poetry to private letters, legal texts and inscriptions.
How do you imagine Roman Antiquity? How do the images produced for film, TV and popular fiction reflect the lives of those in antiquity? Can we see the everyday experience of Pliny, Juvenal or Augustine or of those who were killed in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79?
This module will explore everyday life in the Roman world, from haircuts, tattoos and gestures, to everyday rites and rhythms, whether domestic, social, political or religious, focusing on human experience, with its culturally specific organisation rather than abstract scholarly constructions. It will range from Augustan Rome to Late Antique Constantinople, and will draw on depictions, literary evidence (such as poems), original documents (from personal letters to minutes of meetings), inscriptions and especially archaeology, focusing on key sites where preservation is good, such as Pompeii, Ostia, Sardis and Petra. Here buildings, graffiti, occupation deposits and other traces will allow snapshots of everyday life to be constructed: of the houses, workshops, taverns, temples, theatres and churches of Antiquity. Students will be encouraged to undertake both empirical studies and imaginative reconstructions as part of their assessment, so that they understand the importance not only of describing what evidence remains of everyday life, but of actively reconstructing the past, and of engaging different types of evidence in a critical dialogue.
The module will allow the student to acquire knowledge and critical understanding of the fundamental principles related to collecting and interpreting objects within museums and managing these institutions. Students will be required to become familiar and engage critically, during the seminars, with the key references on these topics. Students will then be required to apply concepts and principles learnt in class in the context of their internship.
As part of their internship, each student will devise a special project in consultation with the mentor and the module convenor. Precise objectives and skills to be learnt will be recorded and tracked regularly. Students will keep a weekly log of their activities. The placement may take place either at a set period during the Easter vacation or at regular intervals over the Autumn and Spring terms.
This module introduces some of the major works in ancient philosophy in relation to ethics, aesthetics, political theory, ontology and metaphysics. Students will study substantial portions of primary texts by the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle the Epicureans, Stoics and/or the Skeptics. The emphasis throughout will be on the philosophical significance of the ideas studied. The module will concentrate on understanding key philosophical arguments and concepts within the context of the ancient intellectual tradition. This means that students will gain a critical distance from normative and modern definitions of philosophical terms in order to understand how ancient philosophy generally approached questions and problems with different suppositions and conceptions of reality, reason and the purpose of human existence.
This module explores 5th-century Athenian history through the plays that were put on stage during this period of war and political upheaval. Greek tragedies and comedies produced during this tumultuous period (472-405 BC) offer us some of the most enticing, yet challenging, evidence for the state of Athenian politics and attitudes to contemporary events (especially war and empire). In this module, the evidence of key plays will be set against other forms of historical evidence to illuminate the complex relationship between the types of evidence that survive and the nature of 'making history'.
This module examines in detail the history of the Roman Republic from 350 BC through to 100 BC, and provides both a survey of a major period of Roman history and an opportunity to study in greater depth the political, social, and economic consequences of the development of Rome's imperial ambitions in the Mediterranean. Students will read widely in the ancient sources, historical, literary and documentary. Students will read widely from a range of works including Polybius, Plutarch, Livy, Appian, Cicero, and Sallust.
This module is concerned with the Hellenistic period, which saw an expansion of the Greek world into the Near East and, as a result, the profound political and cultural transformation of the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Hellenistic world played a crucial role not just in the transmission of classical Greek civilisation but also in the shaping of the Roman Empire and its culture, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean. For these reasons, it is a key period in the development of Greek, Roman and later European civilisations. The module intends to provide a general survey of the political, social, economic and cultural history of the Eastern Mediterranean in the period between 336 and 30 BC, following on from the classical Greek and in part dovetailing with and in part preparing the ground for the Roman historical modules. The module will be taught from a range of sources, historical, literary, papyrological, epigraphic and archaeological. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between the incoming Graeco-Macedonian and indigenous local populations and the formation of new states and cultures.
Virgil composed the Aeneid in order to provide Rome with an epic equal to any that Homer produced. Commonly regarded as one the greatest epics of the ancient world, the Aeneid is the story of the foundation of Rome; a tale of exile, war, passionate love and the deepest humanity. We will analyse, comment on and explore the epic, book by book. This will be intertwined with a thematic approach, investigating issues concerning the gods, fate, morality, art and gender.
The module focuses on solidifying students' knowledge of Ancient Greek grammar and vocabulary through exercises and by reading texts in the original. Students will participate in the close reading and interpretation of Greek literary texts through translation. This enhances their understanding of the key themes and ideas in the text.
In addition to consolidating intermediate knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, this module emphasises close reading and interpretation of Ancient Greek literary texts in their literary and cultural contexts.
The module focuses on solidifying students' knowledge of Latin grammar and vocabulary through exercises and by reading texts in the original. Students will participate in the close reading and interpretation of Latin literary texts through translation. This enhances their understanding of the key themes and ideas in the text.
In addition to consolidating advanced knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, this module emphasises close reading and interpretation of Latin literary texts in their literary and cultural contexts.
The Crusades were a central phenomenon of the High Middle Ages. The product of an aristocratic society suffused by a martial culture and a militant religion, reveal aspects of social relations, popular spirituality, techniques of waging war and attitudes to violence, which retain interest for a modern world to which Holy War and ideological justification of violence are no strangers. The aim of the module is twofold: (i) a full exploration of the events of the campaigns in the Near East, covering the experience as well as the motivations of crusaders and settlers in the Crusader Kingdoms; and (ii) investigation of the interaction over a period of two centuries between western Christians and the indigenous populations, both Christian and Islamic, in and around the states and settlements established in the East. In recent years the Crusades have attracted a wealth of new research and debate, much of it conducted in English. These provide students with rich and accessible secondary material against which to pit their own views. The texts, translated from Arabic and Greek as well as Latin and medieval French, are kept to a manageable size and provide opportunities for critical comparison of different viewpoints on the same events or issues.
This module, which is a combination of political and intellectual history, explores Russia in a period of great social change. It charts Russia's evolution from the assassination of Alexander II, including its failed attempts at reform, prior to the revolution of 1917. The reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II will be covered, and the different ideologies of the revolutionary intelligentsia examined. The revolutions of 1905 and 1917 will receive detailed attention. The building of the Soviet state under Lenin and Stalin, including the policies of collectivisation and industrialisation, will be explored, as well the period of the Second World War and the nationalism of the Stalin era. Throughout the module, current historiography will be explored.
Society has always been fascinated by those deemed different and over time, unusual people have been viewed and constructed in a myriad of ways. The course explores the continuities and changes surrounding those classed as different. Broadly, the course will investigate the changing nature of difference from the 1780s to the 1920s. It will examine the body and mind as contested sites; spaces occupied by those considered different; the establishment of normality versus deviance; the changing conceptions of difference over time; relationships between unusual people and the wider society. Using a broad range of sources, from novels to film, the course will trace the shifting cultural constructions of difference.
This module will offer a comparative study of the armies of the Great Powers during the First World War. The module will adopt the 'war and society' approach to this topic and so will focus on the social composition and combat effectiveness of the armies concerned, along with civil-military relations and the higher strategic direction of the war. This module will therefore seek to answer some of the key questions of the Great War: how did the Great Powers manage to raise and sustain such large armies, why did soldiers continue to fight, given the appalling casualty rates; how politicised were the armies of the Great War, why were politicians allowed to embark on foolhardy military adventures, how crucial were the Americans in securing Entente victory and how effectively were economies adapted to meet the demands of the armies? Comparative topics for discussion in seminars will include; planning for war, recruitment and conscription, the officer corps, generals and politicians, discipline and morale; and attitudes to technological advances.
Focusing on the history of modern Germany in the Twentieth Century, the module examines major changes and continuities in the development of a highly advanced, industrialised but also militarised European nation state which played a central role in shaping the modern European geographical and political landscape. The module explores the end of the Imperial Monarchy after the end of the First World War in 1918, the role of the Allied reparation demands, hyper-inflation and political instability of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of National Socialism and the Third Reich during the 1930s. The course will chart the influence of anti-Semitism, racial eugenics and geopolitics in Germany's quest for world domination during the Second World War and assess the legacy of the Holocaust in defining post-war German identity and society. By examining the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the module will take a critical look at the politics, ideology and day-to-day history (Alltagsgeschichte) of East and West German society during the Cold War, and explore the underlying factors which led to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and subsequent German reunification.
Between the founding of the republic and the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the United States came of age. The nation's population increased tenfold; its territory more than doubled. Driven by the high-minded ideals out of which the country had been founded, and the restless energy that saw a nation of thirteen colonies grow into a territorial republic of immense size, the United States became a symbol of a tumultuous century. In time, however, the republic would become a casualty of its own success. As the 1850s wore on, a battle over slavery and its place in a rapidly changing nation unraveled into sectional conflict, secession, civil war and a decade's long struggle after the war ended. The result was the largest forced emancipation of slaves in world history, and a conflict of barely calculable carnage. For better and for worse, the Civil War and its aftermath would become the great crucible into which a modern United States was born.
This module surveys the origins, conflicts and outcomes of the Civil War by not only understanding how the war altered the United States but understanding the Civil War and its aftermath in a broader context. Students will examine the causes and consequences of the conflict, by looking backwards to the roots of sectionalism and secession, and forwards into the postwar period, known as Reconstruction. The purpose of this module is to understand how all of these historical forces sowed the seeds of the republic's demise, while at the same time examining what kind of new nation Americans created in the ashes of the old one. Out of the war would come not only a new nation, but a fundamentally different United States. The violent collapse of slavery and the destruction of the plantation system brought profound change and innumerable conflicts, long after the South capitulated and two national armies laid down their weapons. In the wake of the war, Americans would attempt to construct a new republic, born as Abraham Lincoln urged in 1864, out of a 'new birth of freedom.’ The problems with that birth, and the contradictions that would endure, would mark the country right up to the present-day.
Often described as the 'Jewel in the Crown', British India played a key role (economic, strategic, military) in the expansion and consolidation of British Empire. In the 18th century India had been a territory held by the English East India Company; by the mid-19th century India became a crown colony and an integral part of the British Empire for reasons that included both resources and a role in enhancing imperial prestige.
Focussing mainly on the nineteenth century, this module explores the processes through which India became a colony and its broader impact on the British Empire. More specifically, the purpose of the module is to impart in students a critical understanding of the relationship between India and the British Empire, especially the ways in which India influenced imperial policies (social, economic) in both metropolitan Britain and in the wider British dominions and colonies. In short, this module offers a survey of the complex, long and historically consequential relation between India and the British Empire.
This module explores the history of play in the United States of America across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The module pays keen attention to the interface of technology with the emergence of mass consumption, modern media, increased leisure time and shifts in family life in a US setting. It encourages students to reflect on the deeper meanings behind the practice of play by engaging with significant theoretical discussions (such as Huizinga's magic circle, or Chapman's (hi)story-play-space). Play is explored through its relationship with matters of class (1890's Coney Island and segregated amusements), race (African-American Jackie Robinson as the first Major League baseball player in the 1940s), and gender (the 1950’s Barbie Doll).
The module also explores how 'play’ and 'games’ can be seen to shape popular views of history and the past. Through the lens of modern video games, sessions tackle how the frontier West, the Cold War, and the War on Terror have all been 'gamified.’ Through project work, it encourages students to dissect the presentation of America and American history in specific game products, and tackle some of the myriad problems with ‘playing the past’.
The interdisciplinary module draws on literature from (Historical) Game Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies and Cultural History.
The centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire are often portrayed as a morass of feud, violence and lawlessness. This module tests this caricature by examining how early medieval rulers maintained law and order in an age when they often lacked the capacity to intervene directly to resolve conflicts. Looking across the western post-Roman 'barbarian' kingdoms and the Byzantine Empire, we shall examine a wide range of documentary and literary sources which offer fascinating perspectives on a variety of social and political conflicts. Students will gain a broad understanding of how the social order was kept together at a time when everything seemed to be falling apart. Along the way, we shall explore issues relating to crime and punishment, violence and coercion, social status, marriage and sexuality, the power of the Church, and more. How widespread was vendetta or ‘blood-feud’? Did medieval courts really use ordeals to establish innocence? Why did individuals sometimes voluntarily enter slavery? What could a woman do if she wished to divorce her husband? These are the kinds of questions students will consider in this module on conflict, law and justice in the early medieval world.
In this course, students will study the rich history of the Early Modern Islamic World, stretching from the Ottoman Empire in the West, to India and Central Asia in the East. The course will focus on the three so-called 'Gunpowder Empires', the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals. It will cover their rise from tribal, religious groupings on the borders and peripheries of the Islamic World, to true world powers. Students will be introduced to the ancient concepts of Iranian Kingship and how these were revitalised by all three empires to serve political aims, while maintaining a strict adherence to the tenets of Islam. Students will also explore the conflicting nature of these empires and their neighbours; whether the ongoing struggles between the Ottomans and Safavids in the Caucasus, or the uneasy relationship between the Mughals and the Hindu population of the Indian Subcontinent.
This module explores the three extreme ideologies which took hold of parts of Europe during the interwar period – communism (especially in Russia; later, the Soviet Union), fascism (especially in Italy, and later in Spain), and Nazism (in Germany). These ideologies will be assessed in three ways. Firstly, they will be examined individually, encompassing their emergence, rise to power and assumption of total control; here, the emphasis will be on the power of ideological thinking, the extent of popular support attained by the movements, and the country-specific reasons for their success. Secondly, the ideologies will be considered in comparison with one another, including the leadership styles of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco, the roles played by propaganda in their rise and rule, and the ways in which they utilised, or otherwise engaged in, violence to further their aims. And thirdly, the connections between them will be discussed, especially the notion that in the countries mentioned above, and later across Europe, the struggle between extreme ideologies of left and right became the defining issue of the period.
This course explores Southern Africa in a period when it was one of the most dynamic and turbulent regions on earth. Early encounters and conflicts between European settlers and African societies focused on land and labour and were shaped by rapid changes in local and global economies and societies. The discovery of gold and diamonds transformed the local economy and radically transformed the region's relations with the major imperial powers: Germany, Great Britain and Portugal. The Berlin conference of 1884-85 initiated a scramble for formal control of the region, its peoples and its riches, which culminated in the South African war of 1899-1902. Diverse African societies responded to interactions and conflicts with European encroachment and annexation in a range of ways. Processes of African and European empire building and expansion will be examined as will be the economic and political dynamics of European imperialism, both on the international and the local stage, demonstrating both their metropolitan and local causes. This module will look at the societies of both the colonisers and the colonised, also paying attention to African responses and resistance.
Between 1815 and 1914 Britain engaged in only one European war. The Empire was, therefore, the most consistent and most continuous influence in shaping the army as an institution, in providing it with sustained exposure to warfare and in enabling it to develop and refine its professionalism as an institution. This module will examine various aspects of the British army's imperial experience in the period 1750-1920. The central focus will be on the campaigning in Africa and India, exploring how a relatively small number of British soldiers managed to gain and retain control of such vast territories and populations. Although the time period will run from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the focus of the module will be on the Victorian and Edwardian periods, reflecting the current historiography on the topic. The extended date parameters will, however, allow for thematic studies of central issues such as army reform and civil-military relations to be placed in their wider chronological context.
Cultures never develop and grow in isolation. They are built on the values of past generations, and they are shaped and challenged in interaction with other cultures. The main objective of this module is to explore and present the powerful interaction between Europe and the Islamic world in early modern times, c. 1450-1750.
The course will firstly provide an overview of the rise and fall of three major Islamic states and empires (the Abbasid Caliphate, the Safavid Empire, the Ottoman Empire). It will then assess the early modern European encounter with the Islamic world 1) by discussing the scholarly, religious, political and economic incentives for this encounter; 2) by documenting the exchange of knowledge, ideas, values and material objects this encounter stimulated in the early modern period; 3) by exploring the enormous impact, which this encounter had on European civilization.
The French Revolution was one of the great turning points of European history. Indeed the deputies of the National Assembly claimed that the year 1789 marked the beginning of a new modernity. They consciously rejected the past by dismissing it as an 'ancien régime' or old order. This module will seek to understand and question this claim. It will examine critically the last decades of the Bourbon monarchy and ask if the term 'crisis' is an adequate description of this period. It will then turn to the revolutionaries’ ambitious programme of reform which sought to remould not only the institutional and governmental landscape of France but the very underpinnings of daily life. The Revolution deployed rapidly a new armoury of political concepts such as: national sovereignty, secular state and rights of man. Such innovations threw political legitimacy, deference towards social elites and the relationship between church & state into a dangerous state of flux. The module will examine the process by which an initially liberal agenda of freedom, tolerance and pluralism succumbed quickly to factional expediency, international warfare and political terror. It will also introduce students to some of the historiographic battlegrounds and stakes which have divided scholars of the French Revolution during the past two centuries.
The diplomatic relationship between Britain and France in the first half of the twentieth century can be seen as a marriage of convenience. Not natural historical allies, the British and French governments were forced increasingly to work together to combat the tensions in Europe that led to the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars.
This module explores the love-hate relationship between the two countries in tracing the origins of the Entente Cordiale, and by addressing some of the major historiographical debates in twentieth century international history. Lectures will provide students with an overview of these debates and the topics listed below, and seminars will encourage students to consider their understanding of these areas and critically engage with them through discussion.
Themes explored will typically include, imperialism, political reform and its impact on foreign policy formation, democratisation, the rise of nationalism, peacemaking at the end of the two world wars; the Ruhr Crisis, the Treaty of Locarno, the League of Nations; the Kellogg Briand Pact; the Briand Plan; the Geneva disarmament conferences of the late 1920s/early 1930s; Eastern Europe and Russia; different strategies to deal with the rise of Hitler; the fall of France, the rise of Vichy; the secret war; the outbreak of the Cold War.
The curriculum works systematically through the exploration and settlement of different regions, with weekly material covering particular migratory pathways, including Chesapeake planters, New England puritans, pirates and settlers in the Caribbean, and other seminal cultural zones including attention to the Middle Colonies and the Lower South. Introductory coverage will explore the "prehistory" of British colonialism through an examination of the plantation of Ulster, and other aspects of migration and imperialism will be treated through engagement with the Scottish experiment at Darien and English attempts to gain footholds in West Africa. The curriculum will concentrate on particular themes to help sustain integrity across this diffuse oceanic domain: encounters with indigenous peoples, Atlantic imperialism, settlement demographics, and cultural folkways. The final weeks of the course will treat points of convergence and integration, including the growth of cities, religious movements, political commonalities, and the eighteenth-century wars for empire in the Atlantic, culminating in the Peace of Paris of 1763.
This module examines the European experience of war during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The lectures will consider the major national armies (French, Prussian, Austrian, Russian, British and Spanish) and how they were expanded and reformed in the wake of the French Revolution. Seminars will consider key themes, such as the nature of the officer corps, recruitment and conscription, the nature of 'People's War’, interactions between soldiers and civilians, developments in tactics, logistics and discipline and morale. The approach taken, will largely be that of ‘war and society’, focusing on the social history of the armies but there will also be some consideration of operational history and cultural history approaches to this topic. While this approach moves significantly away from ‘old military history’ with its focus on generals and battles, there will be some consideration of Napoleon’s methods of warfare and how these were successfully countered by his enemies.
Over the last two centuries, surgery has been radically transformed from a barbaric craft to a precision based science. Aided by new technologies, surgeons pioneered exploration into the body in ways never achieved before and became heroes of the hospital operating theatre and beyond. Historians have called this a surgical revolution. But how revolutionary was it? Did surgeons always get it right? Did new ideas, procedures and technologies immediately replace those that came before them? Is the history of surgery simply a story of continual progress? This module will examine major aspects of surgery from 1750 in order to evaluate the extent to which a 'surgical revolution' took place. Topics to be addressed include the rise of pathological anatomy; dissection and body snatching; anaesthesia; antisepsis and asepsis; vivisection; war; organ transplantation; and keyhole surgery. Adopting a social and cultural approach, the module will examine these topics in line with several key themes: the surgical profession, masculinity and heroism; patients, ethics and the body; technologies and techniques; and the sciences of pathology and physiology. The module will also explore the dissemination of surgical history today to public audiences through analyses of museum exhibits.
The module will chart the evolution of what largely remains the contemporary British political landscape. It begins and ends during periods when British foreign relations considerations played an important role in internal domestic affairs. This includes the Edwardian tariff reform debate, that split the Conservative/Unionist party during the early years of the twentieth century, and origins of the most recent phase in Britain's increasingly fraught relationship with the EU, that would again split the Conservative party and result in the events of June 2016. The module examines all of the key British political figures between 1903-1997, including David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Antony Eden, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. It examines how the role of prime minister changed over this period, likewise the role of the Cabinet and other cognate constitutional issues. The module examines the ways in which labels such as Liberal and Tory changed over the period, as well as important developments such as the evolution of the politics of consensus and the role played by coalition government in British political history. A further major theme will be how British domestic politics were influenced by wider international economic and security questions, such as the impact of the two world wars and the Cold War.
This course examines the reporting of war in the British media from the Crimean War (1853-1856) to the end of the Second World War in 1945. Against an overview of the causes and consequences of a series of conflicts around the world, the course will present a series of case studies to provide an analysis of the development of the media such as the growth of newspapers, commercial advertising, film and broadcasting. The developing role of war correspondents will be contextualised with the role of government in influencing the flow of information to the public in parallel to the development of the national newspaper press, through early cinema and radio, to enhance students' understanding of the historical developments in the reporting of conflict and the growth of the modern media prior to the dawn of Britain’s television service.
This module considers politics, religion, culture and society in Britain under the Stuart kings, and analyses the nature and causes of conflict arising from tensions between, and within these overlapping areas. The seventeenth century was a period of fluctuating fortunes in church and state. The growth of religious polarisation, heightened fears of popish conspiracy, and the emergence of increasing religious dissent and toleration, went hand-in-hand with the collapse of monarchical authority, an experiment with republican government, and eventually, after the restoration of royal power, permanent constitutional change. In the hands of the Stuarts, the seventeenth century was often a turbulent time for England, Scotland and Ireland, as the dynasty grappled with the practicalities of governing three separate kingdoms, whose interests only periodically combined and occasionally collided. The complexity of the period is reflected in its historiography, which covers a broad range of themes, and about which debates continue to flourish.
The history of the Great War is a subject of perennial fascination for this war left its imprint on British/European society to an extent almost unparalleled in modern history. No previous war matched it in scale and brutality. The military history and the course of events has been told many times. This course, by contrast, focuses on the social and cultural upheavals of the Great War. The aim is to move beyond narrow military history and examine the war's sociocultural impact on British and European societies. Furthermore, it hopes to overcome historians’ fixation with national histories. The First World War was, by definition, a transnational event and this course will fully explore the comparative method.
The module will explore the nature of the British Army in the Second World War. How it reacted to the crushing defeats of 1940 in France and 1942 in the Far East before transforming itself into a war-winning force. It will take a broad approach to military history, studying the political, economic and cultural realities behind the force.
This module explores the place of death within medieval European culture, focusing especially on the visual and material evidence of relics, tombs, architecture, wall paintings, and illuminated manuscripts. It will begin by examining how ideas about death and the dead were expressed in works of art from Late Antiquity until the arrival of the Black Death in 1348. Our primary sources will be set within the context of literary, visual, documentary and liturgical evidence. Together, we will examine these sources from different disciplinary perspectives in attempt to determine how the study of medieval death and contemporary anxieties about the afterlife can inform us about how people lived in the Middle Ages.
You have the opportunity to select elective modules in this stage.
Going abroad as part of your degree is an amazing experience and a chance to develop personally, academically and professionally. You experience a different culture, gain a new academic perspective, establish international contacts and enhance your employability.
You can apply to add a year abroad to your degree programme from your arrival at Kent until the autumn term of your second year. The year abroad takes place between Stages 2 and 3 at one of our partner universities. Places and destination are subject to availability, language and degree programme. For a full list, please see Go Abroad.
You are expected to adhere to any academic progression requirements in Stages 1 and 2 to proceed to the year abroad. The year abroad is assessed on a pass/fail basis and does not count towards your final degree classification.
This module reviews texts relating to sexual behaviour attitudes and relationships throughout Latin Literature, raising questions about both the perception of sexuality in antiquity and how perception was translated into social and political relationships. Because of the nature of its coverage, it can be counted as either a literature or a social history course, and is intended as a wide-ranging complement to both. The module relies on primary texts from a variety of literary genres, from Epic and poetry to private letters, legal texts and inscriptions.
This module is concerned with the impact of the Classical World on ancient Egypt between Alexander's invasion and the Arab conquest, and on the nature and permanence of the brilliant hybrid civilisation which emerged under Greek and Roman rule.
Alexander entered Egypt as a liberator, but he and his successors created a colonial regime with Greek as the ruling language and Greeks as the ruling elite under their own law. Mercenaries were settled on reclaimed land, Greek cities were founded, especially Alexandria, one of the glories of the ancient world. An elaborate system of economic regulation maximised production to support warfare, city-building and display. The temples became a department of state. New cults were created to unite the two peoples and strengthen the regime. Native Egyptians showed their resentment in disaffection and rebellion. Roman rule (after the spectacular end of the Ptolemaic dynasty) was if anything harsher and more remote, and the rise of the Copts is often interpreted as an anti-Roman, anti-Classical movement.
Yet it is a mistake to see the relationship as wholly negative. Art and architecture flourished – most temples surviving today are the work of the Ptolemies. In civil service, army, business the new regime offered avenues to advancement for native Egyptians. A genuinely bilingual upper class emerged, able to make significant contributions to Classical culture. The ancient religion retained its prestige and was adopted by many Greeks, spreading far outside Egypt. Coptic culture was as much Classical as Egyptian, and Greek language long survived the Arab conquest. Sources for this vivid, complex and often neglected phase of Egyptian history are rich and varied: temples, tombs, remains of cities and villages, mummies, inscriptions, sculpture, coins, and an extraordinary range of papyrus documents, able to offer unique insights into an ancient civilisation.
How did the Western Roman Empire undergo its transformation into the early medieval world? This course provides an overview of the period between 300 and 600 A.D., in particular, examining the collision between barbarian and Roman in late Antiquity and the development of the post-Roman and early medieval West, focusing on changes in culture and society through a critical evaluation of evidence from history, art, architecture and archaeology. There will be a focus on Italy, France and Britain, which is intended to provide a manageable and structured course at an appropriate level of detail, with the potential for some depth of analysis. It is also intended to concentrate on those geographical areas which mesh closely with the subject matter of other courses in Roman archaeology and late Antique and medieval history offered by the Classical & Archaeological Studies department.
This module addresses one of the fundamental aims of the programme, to familiarise students with the techniques of independent study and practice methodological skills they have acquired/are acquiring in their other modules. Projects may be developed on any suitable subject, subject to approval by the convenor, and the module can be linked with any of the modules in the programme. Choices will be informed by the student's personal interests, the fulfilment of the aims of the module, the availability of expert supervision, and the accessibility of relevant material.
This module consists of an introduction to the study of the various indigenous languages and scripts of ancient Egypt from the earliest times to the Arab conquest (641 AD). During this period of approximately four thousand years the development of the native Egyptian tongue may be divided into five distinct phases, each of which may be called a separate language in its own right, Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, New Egyptian, Demotic and, finally, Coptic. A variety of writing systems were developed to record texts in these languages, depending on the function, social and presentational context and time period of the text: hieroglyphic, hieratic, abnormal hieratic, demotic and Coptic.
The module will first examine the origins of the ancient Egyptian language and its genetic relationship with other North-East African and Western Asian languages based on the latest results of historical linguistics. It will then focus on the development of Egyptian itself through the ages, highlighting its different stages and their particular characteristics. It will also examine the earliest uses and functions of writing in Egyptian society and the role played by writing in the social, economic and cultural development of this unique ancient civilisation. Finally, the module will concentrate on the Middle Egyptian language written in the hieroglyphic writing system and students will be taught to read and translate simple texts in this tongue and script.
This module will provide a detailed and research-led study of the century of political instability now known commonly to historians as the 'crisis' of the Roman Republic. It begins at the end of the 2nd century BCE amidst a period of rising populism, demagoguery, and socio-economic strain and fragmentation among the traditional elite. Proceeding through the civil wars of the 1st century BCE, from Sulla and Marius, Pompey and Caesar, and finally Antony and Octavian, the study ends with the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE and the accession of Octavian/Augustus as monarch over the Roman Empire.
The lectures will give detailed discussion of the varying scholarly interpretations of this much-discussed and famous period of Roman history, introducing students to the sources of evidence (historiography, biography, political philosophy, art, coinage, architecture, inscriptions) and providing models of their effective combination. In addition to the chronological survey of the period discussed, lectures will also develop major themes essential to the students' understanding of the century of political crisis that precipitated the transition from Republic to monarchy. Topics covered may include tradition and innovation; art and the political; consensus models; crisis theory; women and the sub-elite as political actors; rhetoric and its abuse; warfare and imperialism.
The seminars will provide hands-on training in the interpretation of the evidence for these periods and themes, both material and literary, arising out of the content of the immediately preceding lecture. Some seminars will also be reserved for discussion in order to clarify best practice for the assessments.
Virgil composed the Aeneid in order to provide Rome with an epic equal to any that Homer produced. Commonly regarded as one the greatest epics of the ancient world, the Aeneid is the story of the foundation of Rome; a tale of exile, war, passionate love and the deepest humanity. We will analyse, comment on and explore the epic, book by book. This will be intertwined with a thematic approach, investigating issues concerning the gods, fate, morality, art and gender.
This module takes a critical and interdisciplinary approach to modern interpretations of ancient literature, culture and art. After first developing a rich and detailed view of a key theme in classical studies (e.g. inebriation, madness, divine signs, humour, emotion, ugliness, the senses), the module will then explore how its central theme is addressed both in the ancient world and in twenty-first century debates.
This module is concerned with the Hellenistic period, which saw an expansion of the Greek world into the Near East and, as a result, the profound political and cultural transformation of the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Hellenistic world played a crucial role not just in the transmission of classical Greek civilisation but also in the shaping of the Roman Empire and its culture, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean. For these reasons, it is a key period in the development of Greek, Roman and later European civilisations. The module intends to provide a general survey of the political, social, economic and cultural history of the Eastern Mediterranean in the period between 336 and 30 BC, following on from the classical Greek and in part dovetailing with and in part preparing the ground for the Roman historical modules. The module will be taught from a range of sources, historical, literary, papyrological, epigraphic and archaeological. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between the incoming Graeco-Macedonian and indigenous local populations and the formation of new states and cultures.
This module is an introduction to ancient Greek ritual and religion, including the Mystery cults. The module offers a comprehensive introduction to the major gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, spheres of influence, characters, relationships, exploits, and worship. It is concerned with the analysis of religious festivals, cults, beliefs, and the development of religious architecture. The module additionally briefly contrasts Greek religion to Christianity, as an example of investigating how Greek religion differs from, and resembles modern religions. The materials of the module are drawn from archaeology, Greek poets, artists, playwrights, mythographers, and philosophers from the 10th–2nd centuries BC.
The module provides students with an advanced understanding of Ancient Greek Prose through the reading, translation and interpretation of ancient text(s). Students will gain a systematic understanding of Greek by reading texts in the original with special attention to stylistics, textual criticism and/or thematic development through the use of author- and theme-specific scholarly tools and publications. The emphasis in this module will be on the development of critical skills that aid in the analysis of the text(s) as literature within a broader literary and cultural context.
The module provides students with an advanced understanding of Ancient Greek Verse through the reading, translation and interpretation of ancient text(s). Students will gain a systematic understanding of Greek by reading texts in the original with special attention to stylistics, textual criticism and/or thematic development through the use of author- and theme-specific scholarly tools and publications. The emphasis in this module will be on the development of critical skills that aid in the analysis of the text(s) as literature within a broader literary and cultural context.
The module provides students with an advanced understanding of Latin Prose through the reading, translation and interpretation of ancient text(s). Students will gain a systematic understanding of Latin by reading texts in the original with special attention to stylistics, textual criticism and/or thematic development through the use of author- and theme-specific scholarly tools and publications. The emphasis in this module will be on the development of critical skills that aid in the analysis of the text(s) as literature within a broader literary and cultural context.
The module provides students with an advanced understanding of Latin Verse through the reading, translation and interpretation of ancient text(s). Students will gain a systematic understanding of Latin by reading texts in the original with special attention to stylistics, textual criticism and/or thematic development through the use of author- and theme-specific scholarly tools and publications. The emphasis in this module will be on the development of critical skills that aid in the analysis of the text(s) as literature within a broader literary and cultural context.
The Crusades were a central phenomenon of the High Middle Ages. The product of an aristocratic society suffused by a martial culture and a militant religion, reveal aspects of social relations, popular spirituality, techniques of waging war and attitudes to violence, which retain interest for a modern world to which Holy War and ideological justification of violence are no strangers. The aim of the module is twofold: (i) a full exploration of the events of the campaigns in the Near East, covering the experience as well as the motivations of crusaders and settlers in the Crusader Kingdoms; and (ii) investigation of the interaction over a period of two centuries between western Christians and the indigenous populations, both Christian and Islamic, in and around the states and settlements established in the East. In recent years the Crusades have attracted a wealth of new research and debate, much of it conducted in English. These provide students with rich and accessible secondary material against which to pit their own views. The texts, translated from Arabic and Greek as well as Latin and medieval French, are kept to a manageable size and provide opportunities for critical comparison of different viewpoints on the same events or issues.
This source-based class challenges participants to consider the background, causes, and content of the American Revolution from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean from the Stamp Act debates to the establishing of the Federal Constitution. Students will be asked to digest primary documents from political speeches in the British Parliament, to American political pamphlets. Students will consider the character and place of the American Revolution within European and American economic, political, and cultural development. The course will examine the conditions under which American Revolution emerged; the part played by empire, and the distinctive combination of ideological and theological strands that produced a compelling challenge to British Parliamentary authority for the first time.
The French Revolution was one of the great turning points of European history. Indeed the deputies of the National Assembly claimed that the year 1789 marked the beginning of a new modernity. They consciously rejected the past by dismissing it as an 'ancien régime' or old order. This module will seek to understand and question this claim. It will examine critically the last decades of the Bourbon monarchy and ask if the term 'crisis' is an adequate description of this period. It will then turn to the revolutionaries’ ambitious programme of reform which sought to remould not only the institutional and governmental landscape of France but the very underpinnings of daily life. The Revolution deployed rapidly a new armoury of political concepts such as: national sovereignty, secular state and rights of man. Such innovations threw political legitimacy, deference towards social elites and the relationship between church & state into a dangerous state of flux. The module will examine the process by which an initially liberal agenda of freedom, tolerance and pluralism succumbed quickly to factional expediency, international warfare and political terror. It will also introduce students to some of the historiographic battlegrounds and stakes which have divided scholars of the French Revolution during the past two centuries.
This special subject will introduce students to the pros and cons of the historiographical debate surrounding Napoleonic and Revolutionary French history. It will give final year students an alternative means of engaging with the familiar historical category of 'Empire.' The focus on French expansion abroad, in the early nineteenth century, challenges one to move away from understanding the Napoleonic Empire in national terms; this course in essence, by its very nature, is European in both scope and content. To do this it will explore processes of acculturation and international competition on a thematic basis. It will examine, in broad multi-national manner, the complex interaction between centre and periphery or what Italians, more prosaically, describe as conflict between 'stato reale' and 'stato civile.'
This special subject will investigate the Napoleonic Empire in its many facets. Students will be urged actively to pursue their individual interests in either war and society, Empire, political culture and/or gender.
The aim of this course will be to show how far the Great War has infiltrated into modern culture and to test the validity of Paul Fussell's thesis that the Great War created Britain's modern cultural atmosphere. Fussell contends that modern society is marked by a love of irony, paradox and contradiction formed by the experience of the Western Front. Against this theory we will set the ideas of Samuel Hynes and Martin Stephen, as argued in their works, A War Imagined and The Price of Pity. This course will explore how the Great War has influenced our lives and why we have certain images of it. Why, for example, do most people associate the Great War with words such as 'waste', 'futility' and 'disillusion'? Why does the morality of the Great War seem so tarnished, while the Second World War is conceived as a just war? The course will be based upon literature (high and popular), poetry, art, architecture and film. We will therefore be 'reading' a 'primary text' each week. The course will serve to highlight many of themes of the 19th and 20th century British survey courses and will further contextualise the course on Britain and the Home Front in the Second World War.
The diplomatic relationship between Britain and France in the first half of the twentieth century can be seen as a marriage of convenience. Not natural historical allies, the British and French governments were forced increasingly to work together to combat the tensions in Europe that led to the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars.
This module explores the love-hate relationship between the two countries in tracing the origins of the Entente Cordiale, and by addressing some of the major historiographical debates in twentieth century international history. Lectures will provide students with an overview of these debates and the topics listed below, and seminars will encourage students to consider their understanding of these areas and critically engage with them through discussion.
Themes explored will typically include, imperialism, political reform and its impact on foreign policy formation, democratisation, the rise of nationalism, peacemaking at the end of the two world wars; the Ruhr Crisis, the Treaty of Locarno, the League of Nations; the Kellogg Briand Pact; the Briand Plan; the Geneva disarmament conferences of the late 1920s/early 1930s; Eastern Europe and Russia; different strategies to deal with the rise of Hitler; the fall of France, the rise of Vichy; the secret war; the outbreak of the Cold War.
Saints were a central feature of the Christian religion in medieval Europe, and they also had a profound influence on culture and society. This module explores the development of the cult of saints from Late Antiquity to the eve of the Reformation. Some of the main topics that will be considered include relics, miracle stories, pilgrimage, and artistic production. In addition to these topics, the module will consider the impact that saints and relics had on the building of churches and the feast days in the calendar. We will look at a wide variety of sources including illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, stained glass, church buildings, and saints' lives. All texts will be read in translation.
This modules address the politics, ideology and culture of the USSR in the post-war era. It starts with an exploration of late Stalinism, before covering Khrushchev's reforms, Brezhnev's neo-Stalinism and Gorbachev's perestroika. Along with these themes, time will be devoted to: the intelligentsia; labour camps and the release of detainees in the 1950s; Soviet science; religion and spirituality; emerging nationalism; the Human Rights Movement; 'village’ prose; the Soviet economy; foreign policy and policy in the ‘near abroad’; the collapse of the USSR; and Yeltsin’s reformism and the new Russian state. The approach is interdisciplinary, and this will be reflected in the wide range of primary sources used; and throughout the module students will be introduced to the relevant historiography.
This module examines the European experience of war during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The lectures will consider the major national armies (French, Prussian, Austrian, Russian, British and Spanish) and how they were expanded and reformed in the wake of the French Revolution. Seminars will consider key themes, such as the nature of the officer corps, recruitment and conscription, the nature of 'People's War’, interactions between soldiers and civilians, developments in tactics, logistics and discipline and morale. The approach taken, will largely be that of ‘war and society’, focusing on the social history of the armies but there will also be some consideration of operational history and cultural history approaches to this topic. While this approach moves significantly away from ‘old military history’ with its focus on generals and battles, there will be some consideration of Napoleon’s methods of warfare and how these were successfully countered by his enemies.
From early nineteenth century concerns over declining birth rates to the profound impact of the AIDS epidemic in the late twentieth century, this module will examine key political, economic, social and medical issues and events that shaped discourse, attitudes and behaviours surrounding sex and health in Britain since 1800. A central concern of this module will be to untangle the complicated relationship between public discourse and private behaviour. Indeed, while vocal social commentators, scientific and medical communities, the State and the Church increasingly sought to regulate sexual attitudes and behaviours, deviant and tabooed practices such as prostitution, masturbation and sex outside marriage were (and still are) prevalent. In untangling public discourse and private behaviour, the module will consider: the extent to which the regulation of sex and health has been successful; the ways in which attitudes and behaviours changed across the period and varied according to geography, social class, sexual preference, gender and ethnicity; and how they affect our attitudes towards sex and health today. Themes addressed in this module include: Britain's role in the global commercialisation of contraceptive technologies; venereal disease; abortion and infanticide; eugenics; same-sex relationships; and sex crimes.
This module aims to study the Court of Queen Elizabeth I as the fulcrum of power and politics in the realm and as a cultural centre. Students will be introduced to the historiography and current interpretations of the political and cultural history of England and Wales in the Elizabethan period. They will analyse a wide range of original primary sources on the workings of the royal household, and on the processes of policy-making by the Queen and the privy council in relation to the government of the kingdom, and be invited to examine critically the evidence for the reputation of the Elizabethan Court as the centre of patronage in the 'English Renaissance' of literature and drama. There will be regular opportunities to discuss research in progress on these subjects.
The 'Renaissance': a time of artistic and cultural productivity; a time, also, of ruthless politics and repeated destruction. The contradictions of the concept are part of its allure - and there is little chance of ignoring it, from cinema references to Machiavelli to the setting of Assassin’s Creed II. What, though, is the historical basis for the construction of the ‘Renaissance’ that has developed since the mid-nineteenth century? And what does that construction tell us about historians’ perceptions of ‘progress’?
This Special Subject allows you to investigate the culture of the Renaissance through engagement with primary sources, textual, visual and material. It begins the Italian peninsula, often considered ‘the cradle’ of innovation in arts, intellectual life and warfare, looking back to the heritage from earlier centuries but with particular focus stretching from the beginning of the fifteenth century — when the papacy was divided and the city-states at each other’s throats — to the aftermath of the Sack of Rome in 1527, when German troops in the pay of the Holy Roman Emperor pillaged the ‘Eternal City’.
We will, however, continually be placing Italian creativity in context, considering its debts to other cultures, both Christian and Muslim, and investigating its interaction with the cultural and commercial life of other parts of Europe, from Spain to the British Isles.
The term 'guerrilla' tends to evoke twentieth-century connotations. ‘People’s war’, Mao and Che Guevara all conjure up notions of revolutionary warfare, of ‘new’ warfare far removed from the supposedly state-centric armies and strategies of the nineteenth century. But irregular warfare also featured strongly in the nineteenth century. This module studies this type of warfare across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a whole, mixing well-known theatres and campaigns with less well-known ones. It explores the links between insurgencies and nationalism, revolution and counter-revolution, and studies the extent to which we can identify evolving patterns between reactive and progressive insurgency, along with learning curves and emulation in counter-insurgency. British and French experiences will be studied, along with American Spanish, Latin American, Chinese and African.
Between the founding of the republic and the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the United States came of age. The nation's population increased tenfold; its territory more than doubled. Driven by the high-minded ideals out of which the country had been founded, and the restless energy that saw a nation of thirteen colonies grow into a territorial republic of immense size, the United States became a symbol of a tumultuous century. In time, however, the republic would become a casualty of its own success. As the 1850s wore on, a battle over slavery and its place in a rapidly changing nation unraveled into sectional conflict, secession, civil war and a decade's long struggle after the war ended. The result was the largest forced emancipation of slaves in world history, and a conflict of barely calculable carnage. For better and for worse, the Civil War and its aftermath would become the great crucible into which a modern United States was born.
This module surveys the origins, conflicts and outcomes of the Civil War by not only understanding how the war altered the United States but understanding the Civil War and its aftermath in a broader context. Students will examine the causes and consequences of the conflict, by looking backwards to the roots of sectionalism and secession, and forwards into the postwar period, known as Reconstruction. The purpose of this module is to understand how all of these historical forces sowed the seeds of the republic's demise, while at the same time examining what kind of new nation Americans created in the ashes of the old one. Out of the war would come not only a new nation, but a fundamentally different United States. The violent collapse of slavery and the destruction of the plantation system brought profound change and innumerable conflicts, long after the South capitulated and two national armies laid down their weapons. In the wake of the war, Americans would attempt to construct a new republic, born as Abraham Lincoln urged in 1864, out of a 'new birth of freedom.' The problems with that birth, and the contradictions that would endure, would mark the country right up to the present-day.
The ninth to eleventh centuries are frequently described as the 'making of England' – the time when England became a political entity for the first time and when ‘English’ identity begins to emerge clearly in the historic record – only for it all to come crashing down, so some claim, in 1066 with the Norman Conquest. As such, these years and their kings are today invoked in powerful yet often highly problematic discourses of national ‘origins’. While it is certainly the case that the polity of ‘England’ first existed in this period, the historic reality is far more complex and fascinating than such modern representations. For example, the Norman Conquest was not the first conquest of England in the eleventh century. This special subject therefore explores the rich political, cultural and social histories of England from the ninth to eleventh centuries, starting with the first wave of Viking invasions and the rise of the kingdom of Wessex in the ninth century, and ending with the Anglo-Norman historians of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, who reflected on their own identities and the transformations and traumas of the preceding decades. How productive is it to understand the developments of this period in terms of ‘English’ identity? How great an impact did conquest and political violence have on day-to-day life? And how can we account for the international and multilingual cultures that were fostered in Britain at this time? It is these questions that we will address over the course of the module.
This module covers a wide time period, but within this there will be a number of case-studies which will make this more manageable for students. Ultimately the module will revolve around the study of a number of military traditions within Ireland. The Protestant / Loyalist volunteering tradition, witnessed through those who defended Derry and Enniskillen in 1689, the Irish Volunteer movement of 1778-1792, the Yeomanry of 1796-1834, the Ulster Volunteer Force of 1913-1920, the Ulster Special Constabulary 1920-1970, Ulster Defence Regiment 1970-1992 and the various Loyalist paramilitary groups – Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, Loyalist Volunteer Force, etc. which emerged from 1966. The Republican military tradition seen with the United Irishmen of 1792-1803, the Young Irelanders of 1848, the Fenian movement of 1858-1916, the Irish Volunteers of 1913-16 and the Irish Republican Army in the many forms it has existed since 1916. The 'Wild Geese' tradition of Irishmen serving in foreign armies was most noticeable with the Irish Brigades formed in the French and Spanish armies in the 1690s, but was also witnessed in the American Civil War and, indeed, South American Wars of Liberation. The tradition of Irish service within the British army as both regular and amateur soldiers will be considered in detail, with particularly a focus on the role of the Irish soldier in the British Empire.
Case-studies will also consider the First World War, when approximately 200,000 Irishmen and 10,000 Irish women served in the British forces and the Second World War when the contribution of Northern Ireland can be compared to the experience of Eire, the latter often described as an 'unneutral neutral' given the numbers of Irish citizens who served in the British forces during that conflict.
This module will end with a consideration of the recent Northern Ireland troubles of 1966-1998.
War is both a gendered and a gendering activity, polarising combatant men and non-combatant women. These idealised roles have shaped public understandings of the volunteer soldier and the woman ensuring her 'Best boy' was wearing khaki in the First World War and of the Spitfire Ace and the home front worker in the Second. Yet in both wars there were large numbers of men of conscription age who remained in civilian occupations who have been entirely erased from popular memory. Moreover many women joined the services and donned martial uniform and some even undertook combatant roles. This module examines the roles, experiences, representations and legacies military, paramilitary and civilian men and women between 1914 and 1945 using Britain as a case study. However, throughout the course examples from other countries will be drawn upon and students can choose to focus on any country in their assessment.
This module will address the dynamic interactions between the British Empire and arguably its most significant colony India by examining the political life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly known as the Mahatma (the great soul).
The focus on Gandhi, often considered as the person who successfully commanded the nationalist movement against the British Raj will allow an exploration the history of the politics of anti-colonial movement in the British Empire, especially around issues of colonial control; role of violence; citizenship; subject hood and sovereignty. More specifically, as M.K. Gandhi spent a significant amount of time in London – the metropole as well as in South Africa – a white settler colony; an investigation of his political life will provide productive ways to engage with the British Empire beyond South Asia. A comparative framework including the metropole and different kinds of colonies also has the vantage of underlining the ways in which imperial/anti-imperial politics was shaped by forces (intellectual, socio-cultural) more complex and nuanced than perhaps hitherto assumed.
In the first term the module will introduce students to British Imperial history, with a focus on colonisation of South Asia and Southern Africa. Themes discussed in the seminars will include, but not limited to: East India Companies and settlement of India and Southern Africa; imperial networks (people; commodities, ideas. administrators) between India, Southern Africa and Britain; M.K. Gandhi in London and his life and experiences in South Africa; Boer Wars and the beginnings of anti-colonial movement in India.
In the second term, the module will look at how M.K. Gandhi developed his political strategies, especially ideas of non-violent civil disobedience and Satyagraha; major Gandhi lead anti-colonial mass movements in India; Gandhi's engagement with imperial politics in terms of Round Table Conferences and visits to UK and India's independence and partition. These themes will also explore the ways in which the politics of M.K. Gandhi was imbricated with his personality and its consequent dissonances which continue to reverberate even today.
By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the collapse of slavery in many parts of the Atlantic World heralded, for some, the coming of a new, modern age. Revolution decades before in America, France and most powerfully in Haiti, had pushed new ideas to the forefront about who ought to govern themselves, and who those governments ought to serve. In fits and starts, an emerging capitalist system cut a broad path through the international economy, disrupting older systems of trade and upending older ideas about labour and work. For more than two centuries, slavery, we are told, was part of that older world which had become imperilled by mid-century. The institution had been everywhere in the Atlantic by the end of the eighteenth century. By 1840, however, only slaveholders in the United States, Cuba, Brazil and Puerto Rico would continue to hold onto their human chattel. Change seemed everywhere. Modernity was on the march.
This is the traditional story historians tell about the Atlantic World in the nineteenth century: a triumphalist tale that we will challenge in this module. Focused on the period between the 1790s and the 1890s, the module surveys Atlantic history in the nineteenth century and follows lines of connection between ideas about race, slavery, freedom and labour, to see this period in new light. We will take up the social, cultural, intellectual, economic and political battles between abolitionists and proslavery advocates, slaves and slaveholders, freedpeople and landowners, labourers and factory owners, whose struggles for power would turn the nineteenth century into one of the most chaotic periods of modern history. Traversing the history of the United States, Caribbean and Latin America, the module invites students to think in new ways about slavery, labour, capitalism, emancipation and the foundations of the modern world we live in.
This module is designed to give final-year Single or Joint Honours History students an opportunity to independently research a historical topic, under the supervision of an expert in the field. Students are required to submit a dissertation (9,000 words +/-10%) based on research undertaken into primary sources, and an extended reading of secondary sources. The module is designed to allow students to engage in their own historical research into any chosen topic (under the guidance of a supervisory team in the first instance, and later an individual supervisor), and to present their research in a cogent and accessible format.
This module is designed to give final-year Single or Joint Honours History students an opportunity to independently research a historical topic, under the supervision of an expert in the field. Students are required to submit a dissertation (9,000 words +/-10%) based on research undertaken into primary sources, and an extended reading of secondary sources. The module is designed to allow students to engage in their own historical research into any chosen topic (under the guidance of a supervisory team in the first instance, and later an individual supervisor), and to present their research in a cogent and accessible format.
This module examines the cultural, social, medical and scientific understanding of the modern body. The nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century saw a reconceptualization of the body, through technology, environments, conflict, the economy and the cultural construction of the body in relation to the wider world. The course makes it clear that the body is not neutral, and provides a way to explore wider concepts relating to biology, relationships, and experience.
The history of the Great War is a subject of perennial fascination for this war left its imprint on British/European society to an extent almost unparalleled in modern history. No previous war matched it in scale and brutality. The military history and the course of events has been told many times. This course, by contrast, focuses on the social and cultural upheavals of the Great War. The aim is to move beyond narrow military history and examine the war's sociocultural impact on British and European societies. Furthermore, it hopes to overcome historians’ fixation with national histories. The First World War was, by definition, a transnational event and this course will fully explore the comparative method.
See entry for HI767
The course will provide students with a historical understanding of command at a variety of levels by looking at various types of battle scenarios, both strategic and tactical. The course will take an international perspective as well as a chronological one, but will rely primarily on Anglo-American case studies, the colonial struggles of the 19th century, the retreat from empire, the two world wars and the recent actions in the Gulf. As well as providing historical lessons, students will be challenged to solve universal command problems still applicable to modern warfare, and thus provides a transferable skill in both a specific sense - useful for anyone contemplating a career in the armed forces - and in a generic sense it will stimulate the skills needed to deconstruct and solve problems logically while taking account of a variety of factors and perspectives.
This module explores the place of death within medieval European culture, focusing especially on the visual and material evidence of relics, tombs, architecture, wall paintings, and illuminated manuscripts. It will begin by examining how ideas about death and the dead were expressed in works of art from Late Antiquity until the arrival of the Black Death in 1348. Our primary sources will be set within the context of literary, visual, documentary and liturgical evidence. Together, we will examine these sources from different disciplinary perspectives in attempt to determine how the study of medieval death and contemporary anxieties about the afterlife can inform us about how people lived in the Middle Ages.
The 2020/21 annual tuition fees for this programme are:
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
Full-time tuition fees for Home and EU undergraduates are £9,250.
For students continuing on this programme, fees will increase year on year by no more than RPI + 3% in each academic year of study except where regulated.*
The University will assess your fee status as part of the application process. If you are uncertain about your fee status you may wish to seek advice from UKCISA before applying.
Full-time tuition fees for Home and EU undergraduates are £1,385.
Full-time tuition fees for Home and EU undergraduates are £1,385.
Students studying abroad for less than one academic year will pay full fees according to their fee status.
Find out more about accommodation and living costs, plus general additional costs that you may pay when studying at Kent.
All modules have a weekly small-group seminar, and most also have weekly lectures. We encourage you to take part in excavations and field surveys with staff and associated institutions, and student bursaries are available to support this.
Assessment at all stages varies from 100% coursework to a combination of examination and coursework.
For a student studying full time, each academic year of the programme will comprise 1200 learning hours which include both direct contact hours and private study hours. The precise breakdown of hours will be subject dependent and will vary according to modules. Please refer to the individual module details under Course Structure.
Methods of assessment will vary according to subject specialism and individual modules. Please refer to the individual module details under Course Structure.
The programme aims to:
You gain a knowledge and understanding of:
You gain the ability to:
You gain the ability to:
You gain the ability to:
Classics and Ancient History at Kent was ranked 5th for student satisfaction in The Complete University Guide 2021 and 9th overall in The Times Good University Guide 2020.
In The Guardian University Guide 2020, 93% of final-year History students were satisfied with the overall quality of their course.
Over 93% of History graduates who responded to the most recent national survey of graduate destinations were in work or further study within six months (DLHE, 2017).
As part of your degree, you develop critical thinking, transferable knowledge and skills that enable you to work in a variety of professions.
Our graduates have gone on to work in:
A number of our students also continue to postgraduate study.
The University has a friendly Careers and Employability Service, which can give you advice on how to:
Alongside specialist skills, you also develop the transferable skills graduate employers look for, including the ability to:
You can also gain additional skills by signing up for one of our Kent Extra activities, such as learning a language or volunteering.
This course page is for the 2020/21 academic year. Please visit the current online prospectus for a list of undergraduate courses we offer.
Enquire online for full-time study
Enquire online for part-time study
T: +44 (0)1227 768896
T: +44 (0)1227 823254
E: internationalstudent@kent.ac.uk
Discover Uni is designed to support prospective students in deciding whether, where and what to study. The site replaces Unistats from September 2019.
Discover Uni is jointly owned by the Office for Students, the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and the Scottish Funding Council.
It includes:
Find out more about the Unistats dataset on the Higher Education Statistics Agency website.
