Module HIST42730: Negotiating Life in the Early Modern Era

Department: History

HIST42730: Negotiating Life in the Early Modern Era

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To support students in developing an independent command of primary material in the cultural and social history of parts of the early modern world, with an appreciation of the nature and form of sources and the ability to deploy different methods and techniques to interrogate them
• To help students develop a deep engagement with historiographical trends and historical interpretations in early modern cultural and social history.

Content

• This course introduces students to some key themes in the cultural and social history of parts of the early modern world. We will examine key markers and themes of this period: which may include but are not limited to themes such as travel and migration; the nature of community; work and labour; wealth and poverty; sexuality; health and the body. Throughout, our focus will be on “ordinary” people: women and men whose lives appear only abstractly or opaquely in the traditional historical record. Together we will discuss strategies for finding, understanding, analysing, and writing about these people – who made up the majority of the early modern global population – and we will study best practices in the field(s), thinking through historians’ approaches to these topics in past, present, and future.

Learning Outcomes

• Knowledge of the historiography for this subject.
• Knowledge of documentary, material and visual sources for this subject.
• Understanding how historians previously have approached the study of these sources.

• Ability to critically interpret relevant primary sources.
• Familiar with the ways in which early modern people and institutions generated documentation.
• An ability to relate documentary, material and visual sources to one another.

• Independent research skills appropriate to historical research at Level 4.
• Ability to synthesise complex evidence from a range of primary sources.
• Ability to synthesise complex information from a range of perspectives in secondary studies.
• Ability to formulate an historical question for essay work.
• Ability to formulate cogent historical argument in essay form.
• Effective oral and written communication, appropriate to Level 4.
• Ability to reflect on reading and answer questions arising in seminars.
• Ability to present scholarly references and bibliography.

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.
• Seminars require students to reflect on and discuss: their prior knowledge and experience; set reading of secondary and, where appropriate, primary readings; information provided during the session. They provide a forum in which to assess and comment critically on the findings of others, defend their conclusions in a reasoned setting, and advance their knowledge and understanding of early modern social and cultural history.
• Structured reading requires students to focus on set materials integral to the knowledge and understanding of the module. It specifically enables the acquisition of detailed knowledge and skills which will be discussed in other areas of the teaching and learning experience.
• Assessment is by means of 5000 words in total, consisting of one essay in Term 2, which requires the acquisition and application of advanced knowledge and understanding of an aspect of early modern social and cultural history. Essays require a sustained and coherent argument in defence of a hypothesis, and must be presented in a clearly written and structured form, and with appropriate apparatus.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One or more short assignments delivered orally and discussed in a group context.

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.