History course descriptions: Levels 5 and 6

The majority of courses run on alternate years and are dependent on staff availability.

The Birth of Modern Britain 1900-1939 (15 credits)

Britain in 1900 was a self-confident union of four industrialised nations, a centre of world finance and world empire. It was governed by a narrow ruling elite educated in Greek and Latin, nominally responsible to a propertied parliamentary franchise. During the first 40 years of the 20th century those foundations were shaken by world war, women’s emancipation, industrial unrest and economic crisis. There were dramatic cultural changes in lifestyle and identity as well as political developments in welfare and suffrage.

This course explores modern British history from 1900 to the outbreak of war in 1939. It examines the regional, national and imperial contexts of the period with a focus on the debates surrounding continuity and change. Lectures will introduce you to the historical debates and interpretations while seminars will enable students to engage with primary sources and discuss the arguments. Attention will be given to the concepts and methods necessary for historical research and interpretation. You'll be expected to read widely in the history and fiction of the period.

Assessment by: one essay of 3,000 words (level 5) or 4,000 words (level 60). There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

The Birth and Rebirth of Yugoslavia, 1918-1948 (15 credits)

The course examines the history of Yugoslavia between its unification in 1918 and its re-emergence as an independent state following the Second World War and the Tito-Stalin split of 1948. Study of an area with a turbulent past and national ideologies allegedly engaged in a perennial conflict, presents an excellent opportunity for students to engage with different, often competing interpretations of the past and the problems of studying a society just emerging from conflict.

This is essentially a political history course, with elements of cultural and social history, and non-history disciplines such as sociology and politics. Former Yugoslavia has been at the centre of some of the main developments in modern history; from the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo which triggered the First World War, to the recent wars of Yugoslav succession, which led to wider debates such as the ‘return of the past’ in post-Cold War Europe.

Other issues include the viability of multinational federations, ethnic conflict and international intervention. Finally, by studying a European periphery, you will be encouraged to rethink your notions about Europe.

Assessment by: one essay of 3,000 words at level 5 and 4,000 words at level 6. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

The Crusades 1095-1400 (30 credits)

This course examines the political, economic and cultural context of the Crusades in the 11th to 14th centuries. The Western Christian response to the growth of Islam and the development of hostility between East and West will be considered, and a variety of historical sources from both Christian and Muslim traditions will be studied to establish how these events were understood and contextualised by contemporary thinkers.

It will also examine the place of the Crusades in popular myth from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. You will consider the potential long-term effects of the Crusade ‘movement’ on other aspects of European history, such as the growth of papacy, the expansion of Europe into new territories and the development of intellectual approaches to other cultures.

Assessment by: three-hour written paper. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Early Modern European Philosophy (15 credits)

This course examines a rich period of philosophical thought in European history through the study of the ideas and arguments of key philosophers, and the exploration of how they engaged with the important debates of their day.

In addition, you will gain an awareness of how early modern European philosophy is both a continuation of and a departure from earlier schools of thought, and how modern scholars have engaged with these important texts.

Assessment by: one essay of 3,000-words (level 5) or 4,000-words (level 6). You will also be required to submit one piece of (non-examined) coursework during the term, such as a seminar presentation.

The Fictional Nineteenth Century (15 credits)

The novel gained respectability as a literary genre in 19th-century Britain and became a key vehicle for the exploration of social problems. Women writers especially, though not exclusively, seized the opportunity fiction offered to contribute to social and political debates. Furthermore, with developments in the publishing industry making novels increasingly cheaper as the century progressed, and with literacy rates simultaneously improving, fiction was read by an ever-widening audience.

This course will examine the use of fiction as a historical source through exploration of the way in which key issues in British history during the long 19th century were portrayed in fiction. Focusing each week on a selected novel we will consider themes such as industrialisation and the Condition of England, the Poor Law, the Woman Question, slavery, radicalism, religious dissent, anti-Semitism, and domestic service. These fictional texts will be compared and contrasted with other, non-fictional, primary sources and the relevant historiography. The course will conclude with a consideration of ‘neo-Victorian’ fiction (modern historical fiction set in the nineteenth century) and the extent to which the themes and approaches selected by modern authors coincide with fiction written during the period.

Assessment by: one essay of 3,000 words (level 5) or 4,000 words (level 6), and an assessment of a chosen text as historical evidence, 750-1,000 words. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

France since 1870: Fascism, Communism and Democracy (30 credits)

This course covers the political, social and, to a lesser extent, economic history of France from 1870 to the present. You will gain a broad and continuous knowledge of recent French political and social history.

In addition, you will engage with wider issues concerning the impact of social, economic and political change in the 19th and 20th centuries. You will also gain an understanding of both the role of political ideologies and of the contested nature of national identity in an historical context.

Assessment by: three-hour written examination. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Germany since 1870: Nationalism versus Democracy (30 credits)

This course covers the political, social and, to a lesser extent, economic history of Germany from 1870 to the present.

You will be introduced to a broad range of approaches to recent German political and social history, and engage with wider issues concerning the impact of social, economic and political change in the 19th and 20th centuries. You will also gain an understanding of the role of political ideology and the contested nature of national identity in a historical context.

Assessment by: three-hour written examination. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Health, Healing and Illness in Africa (30 credits)

This course explores changing experiences of health and illness in colonial and post-colonial Africa, asking: how did Africans themselves understand the meaning of health, illness and disease? In what ways did these meanings conflict with colonial notions and colonial medical practices?

You will examine ways in which African healing systems and colonial medicine changed over time. The course considers how gender and race influenced Africans’ experience of health and illness. We will also look at patterns of fertility and nutrition and explore the history of infectious diseases (such as influenza, malaria and HIV/AIDS) on the continent.

Assessment by: three-hour examination. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Heresy, the Occult and the Millennium in Early Modern Europe (30 credits)

This course examines collective and individual thoughts ordinarily considered to be outside the parameters of the doctrines of the established church from 1450-1750.

Subjects investigated include the Bible, Apocrypha and extra-canonical texts; the Apocalypse; prophecy; Judaism; Islam; heresy and blasphemy (including the Radical and Magisterial Reformations, the Inquisition and English Revolution); sexuality and obscenity; witchcraft; the Devil and diabolic possession; the theology of the ancients (including Gnosticism, Neoplatonism and Hermes Trismegistus); magic; astrology and astronomy; alchemy and the origins of chemistry; angels; numerology; Jewish and Christian mysticism (including the Kabbalah); freemasonry and the Enlightenment.

Assessment by: 6,000-word essay at level 5, or 8,000-word essay at level 6. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

History and History of Ideas Interdisciplinary Project/Long Essay (30 credits)

(For level 6 BA History and History of Ideas students only)

The Interdisciplinary Project will take the form of independent, interdisciplinary study on a topic chosen by you and agreed with your assigned supervisor. The aim of the project is to explore, through an extended piece of work, both sides of the History and History of Ideas degree programme – in other words, to see the relation between history and intellectual history through a focused inquiry. The chosen topic can be in any area for which suitable supervision can be provided within the department.

The project will be enhanced through five taught sessions at intervals over the autumn and spring terms. These will consist of:

• Introduction to the project and identifying a topic
• Intellectual history
• Research and study skills (two sessions)
• student presentations

Assessment by: one essay of 6,000-8,000 words

Imagining Africa: Ideology, Identity and Text in Africa and the Diaspora (15 credits)

This course considers how ideas of Africa (its people, environment, history) were expressed through the writings of both prominent and lesser-known figures in Africa and the Diaspora.

Through the examination of texts – ranging from slave narratives to autobiographies, speeches, essays, plays and novels – we explore how those ideas took shape within their particular historical and regional contexts.

Assessment by: one essay of 3,000-word (level 5) or 4,000-word (level 6). There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Italy Since 1870 (30 credits)

This course covers the political, social and, to a lesser extent, economic history of Italy from unification to the present. While the origins, course and consequences of Mussolini’s Fascist regime are seen as absolutely central to Italy’s modern history, attention is also paid to more structural socio-economic phenomena such as the enduring north-south division on the one hand, and the mass migration from the countryside to the industrial cities in 1958-63 on the other.

Assessment by: three-hour written examination. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

London’s History Through Literature (15 credits)

London’s history is examined through the work of writers who have lived in London, who have written about the city, or who have used London as the background or setting for their work. As well as secondary literature on the city’s development, a range of primary texts from Shakespeare to Orwell will be studied.

By the end of the course you will have a good knowledge of London’s history, an appreciation of the works of a number of important writers, a sense of different historical periods and knowledge of the variety of locations that make up the textual map of London.

Assessment by: journal of approximately 750 words (25%) and one essay of 3,000 words (level 5) or journal of approximately 750 words and one essay of 4,000 words (level 6). You will also be required to submit one piece of formative (non-examined) coursework, which should be your essay plan. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Medieval Monsters: Foreigners and Other Oddities in the Medieval Imagination (30 credits)

This course explores the way in which medieval and early modern European writers identified themselves as persons. You will study the development of a European identity in the middle ages, and the way that identity was constructed in opposition to a variety of ‘others’, internal and external.

You will explore the relations between western Christian Europe and outsiders including Vikings, Magyars, Arabs and Turks, as well as mythical outsiders, using a variety of historical and fictional sources, including visual materials.

The importance of classical and biblical learning to medieval writers will be explored, and you will investigate how these approaches to gathering and evaluating information began to change in the early modern period. You will be encouraged to visit galleries and museums in London as an important contribution to your research.

Assessment by:

Level 5 - online journal addressing specific questions and resources in light of seminar discussions of 2,000-words (30%), exhibition of visual and textual sources addressing themes of humanity and identity (30%) and one essay of 2,500-words (40%).

Level 6 - online journal addressing specific questions and resources in light of seminar discussions of 3,000-words (30%), exhibition of visual and textual sources addressing themes of humanity and identity (30%) and one essay of 3,000-words (40%).

There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Mediterranean Encounters: Venice and the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1797 (30 credits)

This course examines the connected history of the two most powerful states in the early modern Eastern Mediterranean: the Venetian and the Ottoman Empires. From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the occupation of Venice by Napoleon in 1797, the course encourages you to challenge the notions of “East” and “West” as distinct entities and develop alternative approaches for understanding interaction and its limits in particular historical and geographical contexts.

Assessment by: three-hour exam (75%) and one 2,000-word essay (25%). There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Modern South Asia: Disease, Medicine, Empire and Nation c.1600-1947 (30 credits)

This course will introduce you to South Asian history, from the height of Mughal power through to partition and independence. It will do this through the lens of medicine, disease and imperial encounters in both the Subcontinent and ‘metropolitan’ Britain. By exploring a number of themes and measuring the impact of specific diseases on South Asian and British society, this course investigates some of the ways in which diseases shaped peoples, the British empire and the Indian nation.

Topics will include the decline of the Mughal empire and the rise of the East India Company; imperial structures; ‘tropical’ climates and changing disease theory; race and caste; the encounter between ‘Western’ medicine and Ayurveda and Unani; imperial information networks and the creation of colonial knowledge; gender, sex and disease; epidemics and imperial control; Gandhi’s approaches to the body and mass nationalism; and partition and independence. An examination of some of the diseases that had a specific impact on imperial rule, including plague, venereal disease and malaria, will be interwoven throughout.

Assessment by: two-hour written paper, one essay of 3,500 (level 5) or 4,500 words (level 6), and two book reviews. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Nationalism, Democracy and Dictatorship in 20th-Century Eastern Europe (30 credits)

Eastern Europe has been at the centre of some of the main developments in modern history, yet the region is still largely unknown and remains Western Europe’s ‘other’. This is essentially a political history course, with elements of cultural and social history, and non-history disciplines such as sociology and politics.

Students will be introduced to some main debates about the origins of nations and nationalism in the 19th century (in respect of Eastern Europe). They will discuss the meanings and definitions of Eastern Europe and other, related, geographic-symbolic concepts, such as Central Europe and the Balkans.

They will then study the main developments in the 20th century: the First World War and the postwar settlements; the emergence of ‘New Europe’ in the 1920s; the failure of democracy and rise of dictatorships in the interwar period; occupation, resistance and collaboration in the Second World War; the Holocaust; Communist takeovers in the aftermath of the war; the Tito-Soviet split of 1948; the Hungarian revolution of 1956; the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968; the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1970 and 1980s; the Perestroika and Glasnost of the 1980s; the revolutions of 1989 and the fall of communist regimes; disintegration and war in Yugoslavia; political, economic and social transition of the region; EU enlargement.

Assessment by: one essay of 6,000 words (level 5) or 8,000 words (level 6). There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Of Revelation and Revolution: A Social and Political History of Twentieth-Century South Africa (15 credits)

This course examines key social, economic and political developments in the history of 20th-century South Africa. Topics include the mineral revolution, the migrant labour system, segregation and apartheid, resistance and the transition to democracy in 1994. The course charts important social transformations in the context of this changing political history. Assessment by: two-hour written examination. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Scandal: Sex and Sexual Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain (15 credits)

While popular myth holds that the Victorians were so sexually repressed that even their table-legs had to be covered, sex was, in fact, a constant topic of public debate throughout the 19th century. This course traces changing ideas about, and attitudes toward, sex and sexual identity in Britain during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and legislative attempts to control sexual behaviour.

Topics will include illegitimate motherhood, prostitution, social purity, the sexual double standard and the Contagious Diseases Acts, pornography, male homosexuality, lesbianism, sexology, spiritualism, eugenics and contraception. Focusing on the analysis of primary sources, we will examine the work of a number of individuals including the early 19th-century lesbian Ann Lister, ‘Walter’, Edward Carpenter, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud, and discuss the way historians have subsequently interpreted their work. The course will include a museum visit.

Assessment by: two-hour written paper. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Sex and Sexuality in Europe, 1100-1800 (15 creditS)

Since Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality (1979), sex and sexuality have received increasing attention from cultural and intellectual historians. This course considers the history of sex and sexuality in pre-modern Europe. The primary focus will be on the late medieval and early modern periods, but ancient and early Christian will also be discussed, particularly in so far as they provide the basis for later attitudes. 

Topics will include prostitution, homosexuality, pornography, sex manuals, sex and the Church, sex crimes, and sex and marriage. Particular discussion will consider the extent to which it is possible to talk about sexual identity in the pre-modern period, the relationship between religion and attitudes to sex, whether there was a ‘reformation of manners’ in the early modern period, the significance of early ‘libertine’ writings, and the extent to which notions about sex and sexuality based on an understanding of the 19th and 20th centuries can be applied to the early modern period. Related themes, for which the course will provide insight, include gender history, the history of the body, and medical history. Primary sources will form an important part of the course, and these will include visual and literary sources.

Assessment by: two-hour written paper. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Topics in Early Modern Visual and Material Culture (15 credits)

This course provides an introduction to the visual and material culture of Europe between 1450 and 1800. It examines images, objects and performances and considers them as historical sources for the interpretation of cultural and intellectual developments within a wide range of early modern European societies, such as Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and England.

Throughout the course students will be encouraged to discuss the meanings of visual and material artifacts drawing on secondary research from a number of disciplines, such as art history, the cultural history of images, material culture research, visual anthropology, the history of science and global history.

The main topics include: the birth of consumer culture; state building and the arts; religious visual cultures; European trade, colonisation and global connections; the printing revolution and the rise of the printed image; scientific imagery and the visual production of knowledge; fashion, gender and representations of the body; the visual and material culture of daily life.

Assessment by: one essay of 3,000 words at level 5 and one essay of 4,000 at level 6. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Utopian Visions: The Soviet Experience through the Arts (30 credits)

This course examines the history of the Soviet Union through the lens of the visual arts, literature, film, and music. An attempt to catapult a largely peasant society into socialism, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 ushered in some of the wildest artistic experimentation of the 20th century. Goncharova and Malevich in the visual arts, Eisenstein and Vertov in film, Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov in literature, Shostakovich and Prokofiev in music (Goldsmiths’ own Centre for Russian Music houses Prokofiev’s archive) have become stock names in the canon of global avant-garde art.

We will look at major examples of this artistic production and will acquaint ourselves with selected techniques for analysing them, techniques developed in such neighbouring disciplines of history as literary criticism and art history/visual studies. We'll also place this artistic production in its political, social, and other contexts. And we will critically revisit the answers scholars have given to the big questions of the Soviet arts – was the turn to neoclassical socialist realism under Stalin in the 1930s a break with the avant-garde past of the 1920s or were there more continuities than first meet the eye? How much room for political and stylistic manoeuvre did cultural producers have in Stalin’s times, and how productive is the affirmation versus resistance paradigm in approaching this question? Where do we situate the Soviet artistic output in the contemporaneous international scene, including the Western and non-Western avant-garde, cubist, futurist, and (magic) realist movements? While the chronological emphasis is on the 1920s and the Stalin era (1929-1953), we will also spend time on the post-Stalin and post-Soviet (since 1991) periods.

Assessment by: one essay of 6,000 words (level 5) or 8,000 words (level 6). There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Visual and Material Culture in Early Modern Europe (30 credits)

This course examines the visual and material culture of Europe between 1450 and 1700. It investigates the role of images and artifacts in art and in daily life, focusing on the complex ways in which they acquired various meanings from their producers and consumers. Considering paintings and architecture along with tapestries, prints, everyday furnishings, clothing and food, the course explores visual and material objects in the context in which they were created and looks at the social relationships between their makers, sponsors and users.

The course offers an introduction to the theories and methods of visual and material culture and addresses a wide range of issues including: the marketplace and the birth of consumer culture; religion, politics and visual culture; the development of print and the rise of the printed image; global connections, colonialism and exotic goods; scientific imagery; fashion, gender and representations of the body.

Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to think about the centrality of images and artifacts to the making of history and develop critical approaches to past and present visual and material worlds.

Assessment by: one essay of 6,000 words at level 5 and 8,000 words at level 6. There is also a range of coursework on which formative feedback is given.

Yugoslavia: History and Disintegration (30 credits)

The main aim of this course is to examine the history of Yugoslavia and former Yugoslav peoples, and place the recent wars in a historical context. The course begins by providing a background to the medieval history of the region.

Other topics studied include: the emergence of South Slav nationalisms in the 19th century, including the Yugoslav Idea; the First World War and creation of Yugoslavia; political and cultural history of the interwar Yugoslav kingdom; occupation, resistance and collaboration in the Second World War; the communist takeover; the Tito-Stalin conflict of 1948; the Yugoslav road to socialism; dissent and opposition; cultural developments during socialism; the political and economic crisis of the 1980s; disintegration and wars of the 1990s; international intervention.

Assessment by: one essay of 6,000 words at level 5 and 8,000 words at level 6. There is also a range of coursework on which feedback is given.

History Group 2 courses

Some degree programmes allow you to choose a History Group 2 course; please see the individual degree descriptions for details. Further information about Group 2 courses is available here.

Examples of Group 2 courses are as follows, showing the college where they are taught:

Birkbeck

• The Ottoman Empire
• The War of Ideas in Post-Revolutionary England, 1660-1740
• The Age of Science: The Transformation of European Life, 1850-1939
• Imperialism in Modern East Asia
• The Making of the Modern Racial Order

King’s College London

• Roman Britain Charlemagne and his Heirs, c750-900
• Mayas, Aztecs, Incas, Spaniards: The Native Peoples of the Americas and the Spanish Conquest
• European Jewry and the Transition to Modernity, 1650-1850
• Themes in the Study of Contemporary Africa

Queen Mary

• Outsiders in the Middle Ages
• The English in Medieval Ireland, c1169–1399
• The Left in Western Europe since 1945

Royal Holloway

• The Nobility and Gentry of Medieval England, 1150-1500
• The Islamic Revival: from 18th Century Reform to 20th Century Political Action
• Lahore and Istanbul: Modernity in the Muslim
• Imperial City, 1850-1960 Memory and Modern Europe
• 'Dragon Ladies'? Society, Politics and Gender in Modern China

School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

• The Fall and Rise of the Polish Nation, 1648–1921
• The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia
• Successors to the Habsburgs: East-Central Europe, 1914–1945

University College London

• The Roman Family
• Popular Politics in Early Modern Britain
• Crime and Popular Disorder in Georgian England
• Social History of Latin America since c1890
• American History in Hollywood Film

History Special Subjects

Some degree programmes allow you to choose a History Special Subject/Group 3 course; please see the individual degree descriptions for details. You have access to the resources of all of the colleges of the University of London when you select a Special Subject from approximately forty available across the University. These span a range of subjects, allowing you to access the expertise of the largest concentration of university history teachers in the country.

The Special Subjects are based on the use of original sources in detailed study, which further develops your skills of understanding and interpreting historical evidence. They are worth 60 credits and count for half of the third year’s work. The availability of courses offered may vary from year to year.

Goldsmiths

The Department of History offers the following Special Subjects:

Life in the Trenches: Perspectives on British Military History, 1914-18 (60 credits)

This course is focused on the day-to-day experiences of soldiers in the British army, using battalion war diaries as the core sources. These diaries record the detailed movements of battalions once they had finished training. They provide both much detail and often, vivid description with the main focus being on four Irish battalions (2nd and 9th Royal Irish Rifles, 6th Connaughts and 7th Leinsters).

These diaries will be used as one way of judging the accuracy of popular memory of 1914-18, which is so deeply rooted in popular culture. In so doing, the course will also use poetry, film and individual diaries. One option you will be encouraged to explore for dissertations is that of creating an analytical narrative of a specific battalion during the war, telling the story of its role in relation to wider literature. A visit to the National Archive at Kew will be arranged to support such research.

Assessment by: 10,000-word dissertation (100% of dissertation grade) and two-hour exam consisting of the exam essay and the exam gobbets (55% of the course grade); one 2,500-300 word essay (35% of the course grade) and 500-700-word gobbet (10% of the course grade).

Putting off the Pauper, Putting on the Man: Poverty, Dress and Identity in Industrial England (60 credits)

For ‘the poor’, who formed the majority of the population in the long 19th century, clothing was a potent vehicle for the construction of individual and collective identities, a marker of success and failure, a determinant of ‘respectability’ and a key capital investment, yet expensive and difficult to obtain and retain. This course considers changing definitions of poverty and examines what the poor wore, what clothing meant to them, how it was ‘read’ by others and the many strategies employed to obtain it.

We will read working- class autobiographies and diaries to understand how the acquisition, possession and display of clothing impacted on multiple facets of proletarian life. We shall also look at sermons and religious tracts, Parliamentary papers, instruction manuals, psychiatric texts, institutional records, magazines, prints, photographs and garments themselves, to examine the attitudes and policies of the many wealthier contemporaries who interested themselves in, and sometimes controlled, the dress of the poor.

In so doing we shall discover that the study of popular clothing, fascinating in its own right, also opens a new window onto numerous aspects of 19th-century cultural and social history including the Poor Law, class relations, gender, regional variation, religion, philanthropy, education, consumption, retailing, work and leisure.

Assessment by: three-hour exam consisting of 3 gobbets and 2 essay questions (100%) and 10,000- word dissertation (100%).

Sex and the African City: Gender and Urbanisation in Southern Africa (60 credits)

This course explores how the African city was both understood and experienced by its inhabitants. Throughout southern Africa, the 20th Century was a time of rapid urbanisation and profound social and political change. Within this historical context, we examine how African women and men differently negotiated the transition to urban life.

Key themes include: gender relations and family structures; sexuality, race and ethnicity; religion and ritual; informal economies and livelihood strategies; health and development; urban politics and resistance. We consider the formation of new urban identities and we explore, through in-depth analysis of primary source material, how language and narrative gave voice to these changing identities.

The chronological range of the course begins with the mineral discoveries of the late 19th century and extends to present-day debates around the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The geographical focus is mainly South Africa, but historical and cultural material from present-day Zambia, Lesotho, Botswana and Zimbabwe are also incorporated.

Teaching is by weekly seminars, which include student presentations and discussion. You are required to submit three essays, and to write analyses of extracts from the set primary texts. Assessment by: three-hour examination (100%) and a dissertation of 10,000 words (100%).

Examples of other History Special Subjects are as follows, showing the college where they are taught:

Birkbeck

• The Age of Plague: Disease, Medicine and Society in Western Europe, 1348–1665
• Later Medieval London, 1450–1560: Community, Politics and Religion
• France, 1774–1794: Reform and Revolution
• Family, Society and Culture in Britain 1832–1918
• Popular Culture in American History, 1870 to the Present
• Literature, Culture and Society in Britain, 1914–1945

King’s College London

• Alexander the Great
• Augustus: Power and Propaganda
• The Norman Conquest of Britain
• The Origins of Reformation in England
• Women and Gender in Early Modern England
• Caribbean Intellectual History, c1800 to the Present
• British Imperial Policy and Decolonisation, 1938-64

Queen Mary

• Religion and Gender in Europe, 1450–1550
• Victorian Intellectual History
• The French Civil War

Royal Holloway

• Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, c1140–1300
• When Kings were Gods: Early Modern Islamic Political Ideas
• Migration, Identity and Citizenship in Modern Britain
• Berlin: A European Metropolis from Kaiser to Kohl
• The History and Historiography of the Holocaust Politics and Society in Palestine from c1900 to 1948

School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

• Ivan the Terrible and the Russian Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century
• East and West through Travel Writing: The Limits of Division in Eastern Europe Monarchs and the Enlightenment in Russia and Central Europe
• Urban, Culture and Modernity: Vienna-Prague-Budapest 1857-1938
• Mass Culture in the Age of Revolution: Russia 1900-1932

University College London

• The Assyrian Empire
• Religions, Law and the Papacy in the West: from the Christian Roman Empire to the Frankish 'Roman' Empire
• Voyages and the Imagination in the Middle Ages
• Great Britain and the American Colonies, 1760-1776
• Living the Empire: Metropole and Colony in the 1830s Modernity and Modernism

Related study

Some programmes allow you the opportunity to take a related study as part of your degree. This means that you have the opportunity to choose an option course offered by another department (for example, from English and Comparative Literature, Politics, and Visual Cultures).