Module HIST47330: Emotional Architectures: Building Power and Emotion in the Late Antique World c.250-750

Department: History

HIST47330: Emotional Architectures: Building Power and Emotion in the Late Antique World c.250-750

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To develop students’ interpretative skills and analytical abilities through the use of a range of primary sources relating to the history of architecture, art, and emotion in the late antique world.
• To enhance students’ critical exploration skills through the analysis and evaluation of a variety of interdisciplinary practices and approaches required to research and write about emotional architectures
• To develop students' knowledge of the historical discipline through the consideration of the implications that the need for interdisciplinary approaches to emotional architectures has on the production of late antique history.

Content

• Emotional architectures can be understood as buildings or material and elemental constructions that elicit specific emotional responses in those who see or enter them. In its most basic form, the historical study of emotional architectures involves the reconstruction, analysis, and contextualization of the structure, decoration, and atmosphere of a particular building or monument within the wider socio-political environment in which it was constructed, developed, and used. To do this, however, historians must step outside the text-based boundaries associated with traditional history and learnt to navigate the variety of challenges that come with this. Students of this module will explore these challenges through a series of case studies on emotional architectures in the late antique world c. 250-750. Over the course of ten weeks, they will learn to critically analyze and evaluate the architectural and decorative features of a variety of buildings and monuments across the late antique world. They will investigate what it is that elevates each structure from basic building to emotional architecture, thinking carefully about the contemporary reasons for doing this as well as the wider ramifications that this knowledge has for our wider understanding the late antique world. As part of the study of emotional architectures, students will develop an understanding of the various historical and interdisciplinary approaches required to detect the existence of emotional architectures in the past. They will also use these to think about the practice of writing history, examining whether the diverse approaches required to study emotional architectures intersect with the traditional methods of history-writing or necessitate a new way of writing history.

Learning Outcomes

• An introduction to a range of historical case studies which contain emotional architectures in the late antique world and advanced understanding of the historiography and historiographical debates for each of these case studies.
• An understanding of the key methods and approaches required to study emotional architectures in late antique history.
• An advanced knowledge and understanding of aspects of emotional architectures and their role in the generation of power and emotion in the late antique world.

• To independently recognize, research, and historicize different kinds of emotional architectures from across the late antique world.
• To critically analyze and evaluate the varying interpretations provided by the historical literature pertaining to emotional architectures, understanding how this draws on and is affected by interdisciplinary approaches at an advanced level.
• To recognize the implications that the study emotional architectures will have on the production of late antique histories of power and emotion, thinking about how this contributes to the rethinking of the role that buildings have played in shaping relationships of power and emotion in a broader historical context.
• To be able to produce a piece of independent historical research on an emotional architecture that is consistent with the methods and standards of historical study and demonstrates skills in gathering, synthesizing, organizing, and marshalling historical information to produce an evidenced argument.

• To display imaginative insight pertaining to the unveiling of emotional architectures in the late antique world and the methodological approaches required to study these historically.
• To demonstrate an ability to critically explore emotional architectures and solve complex problems relating to the historical and interdisciplinary approaches required for this appropriate to an MA level.
• To develop intellectual curiosity, integrity, and appreciation of the reasoned views of others where the study of emotional architectures and the late antique world more broadly are concerned.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Student learning is facilitated by a range of teaching methods.
• Seminar discussions will be framed around individual case studies that will require students to actively investigate what it is that makes each case study an example of emotional architecture. To ensure that students develop an advanced understanding of emotional architectures across the late antique world, each case study will have a different geographical location (e.g. Seminar 2 might focus on in Milan while Seminar 3 might look at north-west Gaul). To develop students’ knowledge and understanding of what constitutes ‘emotional architectures’, how they were formed, why they were built, and how we, as modern historians, might approach these, every case study will also focus on a different type of building or architectural construction (e.g. Seminar 4 might be the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople while Seminar 3 might take a villa as a case study for power and emotion in domestic architecture). By the end of the ten seminars, students will have studied enough examples to feel confident enough to be able to be able to independently assess whether a particular building might be considered an emotional architecture and to historicize this within its late antique context.
• Structured reading will be used to ensure that students develop an advanced knowledge of the history of the late antique world and the various interdisciplinary approaches required for the study of emotional architectures. Each fortnight, students will be provided with preparatory reading in two parts: context and methods. The contextual reading will ensure that students will be equipped with the social, political, cultural, architectural, geographical context necessary to discuss and locate each week’s case study in its historical context. The method reading will introduce students to the variety of historical and interdisciplinary approaches that they will need to examine their case study.
• To ensure that students develop the skills, knowledge, and confidence required to critically engage with these methods, 1/3 of every seminar will be devoted to providing students with a form to debate the various methods that they have read about and some of the core questions of the module. For example, what challenges does the use of art historical approaches present when used to inform a history of a particular building? Do interdisciplinary approaches enhance our understanding of the use of power and emotion in late antique buildings or unnecessarily complicate it?
• Assessment:
• Summative: The module culminates in the production of a single summative assessment, an independent project of 5000 words or an agreed equivalent in another format. This project will be defined by the student in consultation with the module convenor and may analyze the power and emotional impact of a particular late antique building or construction.
• Formative: Students will submit a short proposal (c. 1000 words) for their final project and will receive formative feedback on it from the module convenor.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

1000 word proposal.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University