MA Queer History

This module explores experiences, articulations and understandings of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer lives and desires across period and region from medieval and early modern Europe to the present.

Queer history is a rich area of inquiry in which scholars have approached historical problems and debates employing a diverse range of strategies. It pays particular attention to prosecutions and pathologisations as well as to forms of resistance and other ways that queer subjects have strived to forge opportunities for themselves. The goals of this module are threefold

First, using thematic case studies, we will gain insights into the range of sources and methodologies used in queer history including: official documents, news media accounts, diaries and personal letters, oral history, visual and popular culture, and much more.

Second, we will explore queer historiography. Over the past half-century historians have built an expansive and dynamic field, but students will be encouraged to question its limitations, silences, and occlusions. Who is left out and why? Finally, we will think about the theories that have been deployed by those who study queer history and the ways that these theories have been historically situated.

The aim of this compulsory module is to give you some practical familiarity in the range and use of source material and to enhance your understanding of the uses of various types of sources as well as of appropriate research methods.

A variety of different types of source materials, from oral testimony to visual images, will be reviewed, as well as the various ways in which such material can be critically addressed. Consideration will also be given to the archival arrangements related to documentary and other sources - this will include a group visit to an archive, but you will also be expected to visit archives individually.

A further, and important, objective of this course is to prepare you for the research you will need to undertake to complete your dissertation.

In addition to the two compulsory modules and the two options, you will submit a dissertation on a topic of your choice, agreed with your supervisor during the module of your programme of study. With guidance from your supervisor you will undertake independent research, using primary sources, and present the results of your research in a 10,000-word dissertation.

You will attend the departmental seminar series which runs on Wednesday afternoons during the Autumn and Spring terms and participate in a student-organised dissertation workshop. This is held at the end of the Summer term, preceding submission of the dissertation, and is an opportunity to share with your peers and tutors the results of your dissertation research.

An innovative, exciting, and dynamic body of work continues to grow within the field of Queer History. Going beyond the Anglo-Euro-American context and academy, much research and publication is being undertaken in other parts of the world.

This module will critically examine recent work, sometimes beside earlier examples of work in Queer History, to gain insights into the new directions, innovations, and emphases of Queer History in a global context. How, for example, does recent scholarship build on or depart from more foundational pieces, which students will also read, or have read in the Explorations and Debates in Queer History module? How are queer identities and communities differently inflected and experienced in non-Anglo-Euro-American contexts and regions?

This module will ‘queer’ queer history even further through the use of global scholarship and contexts to break down familiar categories, binaries, and labels.

The module explores how different forms of travel and migration have shaped sexual cultures around the world since 1900. Against the backdrop of current debates about homonationalism and attempts at ascribing sexual repression to Muslim immigrants within supposedly liberated European societies, the module questions such dichotomies and asks under which social, economic and cultural conditions global mobilities could and did enable queer and emancipatory critiques and re-configurations of sexual regimes.

In this vein, the module will address the intricacies of same-sex and other forms of desire in colonial encounters, the role of ‘exotic’ sexual cultures in early twentieth century ‘Western’ debates about sex reform, the effects of gay and other kinds of sex tourism, discussions around sexual diversity in multi-cultural societies, the situation of queer diasporas, and the experiences of queer refugees.

The module will highlight how trans-cultural interactions affected sexual patterns and practices within all the groups involved in the encounter, thus opening up fresh, non-Eurocentric vistas into queer history.

History surrounds us, but most people engage with history through the mass media, exhibitions, historic sites, online blogs and journalism. Public history has, therefore, become a key site for making history accessible to the widest audiences. Queer history is no different, and so this module explores the diverse ways in which queer history is brought to the public.

Through the critical examination of queer public history as well as real-world examples of queer history project and products created for the wider public, students will develop an appreciation for the unique skills, voice, and methods employed by public historians of the queer past.

This module will further prepare students to engage in and make use of history and historical debates in queer history outside the academy in areas such as media, policy and planning, heritage, etc. Participation from expert speakers from these fields will also expose students to the widest application of queer history beyond the academy, and help them build connections and networks in contexts outside the university.

Content

The module explores the violent relationship between the nation and the state, focusing on attempts and failures during the 20th century to protect ethnic minorities against the majority populations. Efforts to achieve post-conflict justice and reconciliation will also be analysed.

The module looks at Europe as a whole, but concentrates on its peripheries: the Balkans and the Near East, and East-Central Europe -- areas often ignored by scholars of modern European history. Key events studied will include: population movements during and in the aftermath of the two World Wars, including the Armenian genocide, the Greek-Turkish population exchange of the early 1920s, and the expulsion of ethnic Germans from East-Central Europe in the second half of the 1940s, and the Balkan and Yugoslav wars.

Changing meaning(s) and political (mis)use of concepts such as ‘genocide’, 'holocaust', ‘population transfers’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ will be discussed throughout the module, as will questions concerning overcoming the past in post-conflict societies. There is no foreign language requirement for this module.

Learning Outcomes

You willl:

• Explore history of the events studied and gain an understanding of key developments in the 20th century European history, some of which still shape the way we think about our recent past and present.
• Gain knowledge and comprehension of theoretical issues and debates in modern European history.
• Enhance the ability to frame an argument in a sustained manner. Arguments should be structured, coherent, relevant, concise, and should take into account all aspects of a given problem.
• The module should also enable students to increase their understanding of historical argument and develop an ability to maintain critical distance from sources.
• Enable students to develop a number of skills such as: self-direction and self-discipline; b) independence of mind and initiative; c) the ability to work with others and to have respect for the reasoned views of others; d) the ability to identify, gather, deploy and organise evidence, data and information, as well as familiarity with appropriate means of achieving this; e) analytical ability and the capacity to consider and solve problems, including complex ones; f) structure, clarity and fluency of expression, both written and oral; g) intellectual maturity, integrity, empathy and imaginative insight; h) ability to organise time, work and personal resources to optimal effect.

Introductory Reading

• Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Harvard UP, 2002) [recommended text book for the module]
• Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (London, 1998)
• Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Cambridge UP, 2005)
• Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (London, 1995)
• Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1963)
• Slavenka Drakulic, They Would Never Hurt a Fly: War Criminals on Trial in The Hague, (London, 2004)

Module convenor

Dr Dejan Djokic (Autumn Term)

Content

The history of emotions is a burgeoning field within the historical discipline—so much so, that some are invoking an ‘emotional turn’ or ‘affective turn’. The University of London’s own Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary is one of the many signs of the institutionalisation of the field. This module takes stock of what has been done so far and sketches where the history of emotions might head in the future. We will grapple with some of the complex questions that have defined the field—are emotions socially constructed or reducible to a universal biological substrate? Is there a set of ‘basic’ human emotions, such as anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise?

What sources are available for the study of emotions in the past? How can historians factor in emotion as a cause motivating human action? In coming to terms with these questions, we will look to the existing history of emotions, including that of the French Annales school, Norbert Elias, Peter Stearns, William Reddy, and Barbara Rosenwein.

And we will venture outside history proper and probe how other disciplines—especially cultural anthropology and life science, including the latest affective neuroscience—have dealt with these (and other) questions. We will also examine the links between the history of emotions field and the fields of gender history, transnational/postcolonial history, the history of science, media and visual studies, economic history, legal history, and more.

Seminar attendance is compulsory and students will be expected to read and prepare the material listed in the programme in advance of classes. Each student will be called upon to give a presentation to the class at least once during the term.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will demonstrate understanding of an important dimension of Modern history and culture.
• In addition, students will acquire knowledge of the relevant historiographical literature and be able to evaluate critically select primary written and visual sources of the period.
• Students will also be given the opportunity both through coursework and a dissertation to form and present their own critical arguments. Guidance will be given to enable students to express their ideas in a clear and accessible prose style.
• Students will acquire advanced knowledge and understanding of the various subjects to be investigated.
• In addition, students will acquire a detailed knowledge of the relevant historiographical literature.
• Moreover, students will develop their capacity for independent thought and ability to express ideas in a clear and accessible prose style, both in seminar presentations and essays.

Introductory Reading

• Tim Dalgleish, Barnaby D. Dunn, Dean Mobbs, ‘Affective Neuroscience: Past, Present, and Future’, Emotion Review 1 (2009: 355-368)
• Thomas Dixon, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category, (CUP, 2003)
• Otniel Dror, ‘The Affect of Experiment: The Turn to Emotions in Anglo-American Physiology, 1900-1940’, Isis 90 (1999: 205-237)
• Ute Frevert, Emotions in History—Lost and Found, (Central European UP, 2011)
• Catherine Lutz, Geoffrey M. White, ‘The Anthropology of Emotions’, Annual Review of Anthropology 15 (1986: 405-436)
• Margot L. Lyon, ‘Missing Emotion: The Limitations of Cultural Constructionism in the Study of Emotion’, Cultural Anthropology 10 (1995: 244-263)
• Jan Plamper, ‘The History of Emotions: An Interview with William Reddy, Barbara Rosenwein, and Peter Stearns’, History and Theory 49(2010: 237-265)
• William Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions, (CUP, 2001)
• Barbara Rosenwein, ‘Worrying about Emotions in History’, The American Historical Review 107 (2002: 821-845)
• Barbara Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages, (Cornell UP, 2006)

Module convenor

To be confirmed (Autumn Term)

Content

This module explores the history and historiography of violence, focusing especially, but not exclusively, on Europe between the medieval period and the present day.

It has two principal themes. First, it examines the recent, important debate on whether and why violence has declined in the past half millennium. Domestic violence and crime, terrorism, war and genocide will all be discussed. The role of religion and secular ideologies, concepts such as honour, and the growth of state power will be among the issues covered.

Second, the module investigates the methodologies that scholars have used to explain the causes of violence, the different forms in which it has been practised and its incidence in history. Students will study cultural histories of violence and will explore how disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, and more recently behavioural sciences such as psychology and neuroscience, have contributed to understanding of human violence in history.

Learning Outcomes

You will be able to:

• Acquire an understanding of recent multidisciplinary debates on violence; its causes, forms and trajectory in history
• Gain an appreciation of how historians can draw insights from and fruitfully collaborate with other disciplines, as well the problems and pitfalls of interdisciplinary methodology
• Engage critically with historiography and develop skills of primary source analysis
• Develop capacity for independent thought
• Cultivate written and spoken argumentation skills

Introductory Reading 

• Carroll, Stuart, ed., Cultures of Violence: Interpersonal Violence in Historical Perspective (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
• Ferguson, Niall, War of the World. History’s Age of Hatred (London: Allen Lane, 2006)
• Kiernan, Ben, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2007)
• Miller, William Ian, Humiliation and Other Essays on Honour, Social Discomfort and Violence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995)
• Pinker, Steven, The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes (London: Allen Lane, 2011)
• Spierenburg, Pieter, A History of Murder: Personal Violence in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present (Cambridge: Polity P., 2008)

Module convenor

Dr Alexander Watson

Content

Memories of the First World War remain strong, nearly a century after the war’s start, through the influence of popular culture. Images of slaughter, mud and poor leadership dominate a public view which thinks of the lucky few who came back, even though fatality rates were around 12% of those who served. This module 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 descriptions, with the main focus being on four Irish battalions (2nd and 9th Royal Irish Rifles, 6th Connaughts and 7th Leinsters) which are central to the module convenor’s book Belfast Boys. 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 module will also use poetry, film and individual diaries. A visit to the National Archive at Kew will be arranged to support primary research.

Learning Outcomes 

• In-depth understanding of day-to-day conditions for the military and key events in the First World War
• In-depth understanding of key academic debates affecting the experiences of the British army during the First World War
• In-depth knowledge and understanding of the structure of British military in the First World War, and key terms (including slang)
• Understanding of how to use battalion war diaries as an historical source

Introductory Reading

• Corrigan, Gordon, Mud, Blood and Poppycock (London: Cassell, 2003)
• Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)
• Gardner, Brian, ed., Up the Line to Death: The War Poets, 1914-1918 (London: Methuen, 1964)
• Grayson, Richard S., Belfast Boys: How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died Together in the First World War (London: Continuum, 2009). Paperback published in 2010.
• Stevenson, David, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War (London: Penguin, 2012 edition)
• Todman, Dan, The Great War: Myth and Memory (London: Continuum, 2005)
• van Emden, Richard, ed., Sapper Martin: The Secret Great War Diary of Jack Martin (London: Bloomsbury, 2010)

Module convenor

Professor Richard Grayson

While history of medicine is usually taught focusing primarily on either ‘western’ or ‘eastern’ traditions, this module will focus on transmissions of knowledge along the Silk Roads. More than just routes on which missionaries, travellers and merchants moved between east and west Asia, the Silk Roads has become a metaphor of east-west connections.

This module will deal with Asian medical traditions as they are represented in manuscripts found in sites along the Silk-Roads, primarily the Dunhuang caves and Turfan. The discussion of these medical traditions will be contextualised within the multi-cultural aspects of the Silk-Roads and within processes of transmission of knowledge along the Silk Roads.

The module will also deal with the historical background leading to the discovery of the Silk Road sites and with how the internet is transforming research of the Silk Road. The primary sources used in this course will mostly consist of manuscripts found in Dunhuang (in translation from Chinese, Tibetan, Khotanese and Uighur) as well as visual material and artefacts from the Silk Roads. The texts and artefacts mostly date from the later centuries of the first millennium.

Content

This module examines some of the central debates that pre-occupied early modern politicians, theologians, revolutionaries, scientists and philosophers alike.  Subjects to be investigated within this culture of disputation and investigation include: issues of sovereignty and the divine right of Kings; republicanism; natural rights; the nature of virtue; the authority of the Bible; religious doctrines; predestination; the role of the Church and the Pope; the nature of the body and the soul. Students will be introduced to a number of important primary sources ranging from political treatises and religious tracts to philosophical meditations.

Introductory reading

Secondary sources:

• J.H.Burns and Mark Goldie (eds.) The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (Cambridge, 1991)
• A.Pagden, The Language of Political Theory (Cambridge, 1987)
• Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vols., Cambridge, 1978)
• George Williams, The Radical Reformation (3rd edn., Ann Arbor, MI: Truman State University Press, 2000)

Primary sources:

• Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)
• Thomas More, Utopia (1516)

Module convenor

Dr Ariel Hessayon

This module 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 homosexuality, sexual violence and 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.

Content

This module investigates the connections between empire building and visual culture in Venice from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. It examines both the ways in which trade and colonisation influenced Venetian artistic and cultural production and how images, texts and objects made empire visible at home ant motivated new imperial projects abroad. Through an interdisciplinary approach that combines cultural history, visual studies and postcolonial criticism, the module covers the following themes: representations of the Venetian 'State of the sea'; art and print culture in the Venetian-Ottoman wars; imperial ceremonies and rituals; colonial cartography; antiquarian collections; the Byzantine heritage; cross-cultural contacts with the Islamic world; early modern Orientalism. In discussing these themes, the module places metropolitan visual media and communication in the context of Venetian empire formation and treats the production and consumption of images as an integral part of Venice's commercial and political presence in the Mediterranean. There is no foreign language requirement for this module.

Learning Outcomes

• Advanced knowledge and understanding of the reciprocal relationships between metropolitan Venice and its overseas empire.
• Increased awareness of the relevance of empire in the study of Venetian visual culture.
• Comprehensive understanding of the role of images and visual artefacts in particular historical, geographical, cultural and socio-political contexts.
• Heightened awareness of key methodologies and theoretical debates in the field of visual culture studies.
• Ability to analyse and interpret visual documents in a creative and imaginative manner

Introductory Reading

• Stefano Carboni (ed.), Venice and Islamic World, 828-1797, exhibition catalogue, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007)
• Maria Georgopoulou, Venice's Mediterranean Colonies: Architecture and Urbanism, (Cambridge UP, 2001)
• Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic, (Baltimore & London, Johns Hopkins UP, 1973)
• David Rosand, Myths of Venice. The Figuration of a State, (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2001)

Module convenor

Dr Antonio Cartolano (Spring Term)