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AM-117
Introduction to American Studies
This module provides an introduction to the discipline of American Studies, with a particular focus on the interdisciplinary scope of the subject. In addition to encouraging students¿ critical engagement with music, film, literature, visual culture, and history, it establishes a theoretical framework that will form the basis for more specialised study of the United States at levels 5 and 6. The module focuses on significant spaces in U.S. culture and history, from the ship and the plantation to the suburbs and the shopping mall, which are explored using various disciplinary lens and theoretical approaches.
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HI-M22
Dissertation
Students produce a dissertation of up to 20,000 words on a historical topic, chosen in conjunction with their supervisor. This represents the culmination of the History MAs, and constitutes Part Two of the programme.
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HI-M39
Research Folder
This module is designed to help students to identify a dissertation topic appropriate to their interests and expertise, and to tackle the problems of methodology, develop the research techniques, and undertake the project planning which are the necessary preliminaries to researching and writing a 20,000 word dissertation.
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HIH118
The Early Modern World, 1500-1800
In 1500, European exploration and colonisation of the rest of the world was only in its infancy. America, two continents North and South, had been unknown to Europeans until just eight years previously. Most of it was still unmapped by Europeans, as were large parts of the rest of the world. By 1800, on the other hand, it was possible to construct a recognisable modern version of a world map. Europeans had explored, colonised, and resettled huge swathes of America in the first instances. They had killed or displaced millions of Native Americans in the process, wiping out whole civilisations, and they had enslaved 12 million or more Africans in that same process, inflicting immense damage on African societies. Europeans were in the early stages of colonising large parts of Africa and Asia too by 1800.
And yet, advances in science had transformed human understanding of the universe, of the world, and indeed of ourselves. This was connected through the Renaissance in art, culture, and politics as well as science, to enormous changes in the structure of polities and societies. The early modern era perhaps saw the invention not only of modern empires, but of large, centralised modern states. Also, the Renaissance and then Enlightenment changed the way people and states interacted. Arguably, the early modern period represents the transition period between an era of medieval hierarchy and the origins of modern social and political democracy.
Essentially, the aim of the module, through your lectures, seminars, and independent reading and thinking, is to give you a sense of the connections between these places and their histories, highlighting that the increasing inter-connection between them is itself a feature of the early modern period. You¿ll also get a broad sense of how the world as a whole changed between 1500 and 1800.
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HIH122
Making History
History is an imprecise art and what historians say and write about the past is not the same as what actually happened in the past. Most people's knowledge about the past doesn't come from professional historians at all but rather from 'public history'. Public history is the collective understandings of the past that exist outside academic discipline of history. It is derived from a diverse range of sources including oral traditions, legends, literature, art, films and television.
This module will introduce you to the study and presentation of the past. It will consider how the content, aims and methods of academic and public history compare and contrast and you will engage in your own small research project to investigate this. The module will also teach you about the fundamentals of studying and writing history at university. You will learn about essay writing, group work and critical analysis and employ these skills to understand and assess history today, both as an academic activity and as public knowledge.
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HIH283
The Story of America on Film and Television, 1607-1867
Award-winning on-demand series like Netflix¿s THE CROWN and hit movies such as LITTLE WOMEN and 1917 testify not only to the continuing resonance of history as a popular subject with moviegoers, television and online viewers, but to the importance of visual media as a key access point for our construction and understanding of the past. This course explores how film and television has explained the evolution of North America, and it does so in two ways. Firstly, it examines major events and shifts that took place between the establishment of the first English and French colonies, and the end of the American Civil War and birth of Canada. Secondly, it explores how those changes have been communicated in cinema and on television to mass audiences over the past century. The questions it confronts are: what has been the impact of change upon the American and Canadian experiences? How has that change been interpreted for popular audiences on screen? And how have movies and television serials functioned as historiographic texts? The course embraces the themes of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, gender, liberty, and the rise of democracy through the lens of relationships with indigenous peoples, European conflict in North America, the American Revolution, expansion into the West, the Market Revolution, the rise of Abolitionism, the American Civil War and creation of Canada.
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HIH283W
Stori America Ar Ffilm a Theledu, 1607–1867
Mae cyfresi ar alw fel THE CROWN a ffilmiau poblogaidd fel LITTLE WOMEN a 1917, yn tystio nid yn unig i gyseinedd parhaus hanes fel pwnc sy¿n taro tant gyda gwylwyr yn y sinema, o flaen y teledu neu ar-lein, ond i bwysigrwydd cyfryngau gweledol fel pwynt mynediad allweddol ar gyfer ein hadeiladwaith a¿n dealltwriaeth o¿r gorffenol. Mae¿r cwrs hwn yn archwilio eblygiad Gogledd America ac mae¿n gwneud hynny mewn dwy ffordd. Yn gyntaf, mae¿n dilyn y digwyddiadau a sifftiau mawr yn y stori honno o sefydlu¿r trefedigaethau Seisnig a Ffrengig cyntaf i ddiwedd y Rhyfel Cartref Americanaidd a genedigaeth Canada. Yn ail, mae¿n archwilio sut mae¿r newdidadau hynny wedi cael eu cyfleu mewn sinema ac ar y teledu i gynulleidfaoedd torfol dros y ganrif ddiwethaf. Y cwestiynau y mae¿n eu hwynebu yw: beth fu effaith newid ar brofiad America a Chanada? Sut mae¿r newid hwnnw wedi¿i ddehongli ar gyfer cynulleidfaoedd poblogaidd ar y sgrin? A sut mae ffilmiau a chyfresi teledu wedi gweithredu fel testunau hanesyddol? Mae¿r cwrs yn cynnwys themâu trefedigaethedd, imperialaeth, caethwasiaeth, rhyw, rhyddid, a thwf democratiaeth trwy lens y berthynas a phobloedd brodorol y cyfandir, gwrthdaro Ewropeaidd yng Ngogledd America, y Chwyldro Americanaidd, ehangu i¿r Gorllewin, Chwyldro¿r Farchnad, twf Diddymiad, y Rhyfel Cartref a chreadigaeth Canada.
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HIH3300
History Dissertation
The History dissertation is a free-standing, 40-credit module that runs across both semesters of Level Three. Candidates conduct research upon a subject of their choice, devised in consultation with a member of staff teaching for the degrees in History, and concerning a topic that falls within staff research and teaching interests.
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HIH3378
The Story of the USA on Film and Television, 1865–2008
Hit movies such as LITTLE WOMEN and 1917, and award-winning on-demand series like Netflix¿s THE CROWN testify not only to the continuing resonance of history as a popular subject with moviegoers, television and online viewers, but to the importance of visual media as a key access point for our construction and understanding of the past. This course explores how film and television has told The American Story, and it does so in two ways. Firstly, it examines major events and shifts in that story between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Secondly, it explores how those changes have been communicated in cinema and on television to mass audiences over the past century. The questions it confronts are: what has been the impact of change upon the American experience? How has that change been interpreted for popular audiences on screen? And how have movies and television serials functioned as historiographic texts? The course embraces the themes of freedom, liberty, democracy, the presidency and the concept of the frontier in the American experience through the lens of Reconstruction, the closing of the West and fate of native Americans, the Cold War, the battle for Civil Rights, Vietnam, Watergate, and the sexual and gender revolutions of the 1960s onwards.
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HIH3378W
Stori yr Unol Daleithiau ar Ffilm a Theledu, 1865–2008
Mae ffilmiau arobryn fel LITTLE WOMEN a 1917, a chyfresi ar alw fel THE CROWN ar Netflix yn tystio nid yn unig i gyseinedd parhaus hanes fel pwnc poblogaidd gyda gwylwyr yn y sinema, o flaen y teledu neu ar-lein, ond i bwysigrwydd cyfryngau gweledol fel pwynt mynediad allweddol ar gyfer ein hadeiladwaith a¿n dealltwriaeth o¿r gorffenol. Mae¿r modiwl hwn yn archwilio Stori yr Unol Daleithiau, ac mae¿n gwneud hynny mewn dwy ffordd. Yn gyntaf, mae¿n dilyn y digwyddiadau a sifftiau mawr yn y stori honno o ddiwedd y Rhyfel Cartref yn 1865 i ethol Barack Obama yn 2008. Yn ail, mae¿n archwilio sut mae¿r newdidadau hynny wedi cael eu cyfleu mewn sinema ac ar y teledu i gynulleidfaoedd torfol dros y ganrif ddiwethaf. Y cwestiynau y mae¿n eu hwynebu yw: beth fu effaith newid ar brofiad America? Sut mae¿r newid hwnnw wedi¿i ddehongli ar gyfer cynulleidfaoedd poblogaidd ar y sgrin? A sut mae ffilmiau a chyfresi teledu wedi gweithredu fel testunau hanesyddol? Mae¿r cwrs yn cynnwys themâu rhyddid, democratiaeth, yr Arlywyddiaeth, cysyniad y Ffin a ffawd Americanwyr brodorol ym mhrofiad America trwy lens Adluniad, cau¿r Gorllewin, y Rhyfel Oer, y brwydr dros Hawliau Sifi, Fietnam, Watergate, a¿r chwyldroadau rhywiol a rhywedd o¿r 1960au ymlaen.
