BA (Hons) History and Politics

Level One

Problems of Historical Interpretation I: The English Civil War
This unit considers a variety of interpretations of the war and evaluates these in the light of available evidence.

The Social History of Medicine
Students will place the development of nineteenth and twentieth century welfare and medical provision within its social and economic context.

Reform and Revolution
The socio-economic and political transformations of the ‘long’ nineteenth century in Europe is used to introduce students to terminology and concepts underlying much of historical analysis.

Representing the Past
Explore the ways in which the past has been and is represented in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Britain, examining how it has been preserved, displayed and reconstructed, and why.

Who Runs Britain? Power Politics and Beyond (Double unit)
This module introduces students to the key components of the British political system, and the relationship between domestic and international politics through an examination of the distribution of power within the British political system. It will explain the various factors and actors, both domestic and foreign, which serve to shape and define the political process in Britain. In Semester A this module examines the distribution of power in the British political system through an examination of the key institutions and actors in the British political process, such as the government, the Cabinet, Prime Minister, political parties, the Civil Service, and the judiciary.

In Semester B the focus is broadened to examine Britain’s role in the world. The focus will shift outwards from the relationship between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom to an examination of the key international relationships - with Empire, the United States, East Asia and with Europe - which have shaped and defined British politics, economics and security. Although the focus here is on Britain’s external relationships, the primary objective is to examine how these relationships serve to shape and influence British domestic politics. This part of the module will conclude with a consideration of the impact of globalisation on British politics, and the developing relationship with China.

Global Conflicts and Contexts (Double unit)
This module will introduce students to core issues of relevance to international relations study. The module initially focuses on the development of mechanisms to control and avoid the emergence of international conflict in its various guises. It then moves on to examine a number of key contemporary issues such as global inequality, international political economy, globalization and emerging transnational civil societies. The module is intended to expose students to the breadth of issues and approaches relevant to the study of international relations and international politics more broadly.

Level Two

New Directions in History
Students are encouraged to think critically and creatively about History within the academy, as a particular branch of knowledge and as a discipline with its own rules and procedures.

Radical Cultures 1750-1830
Explore the relationship between politics and culture during a period when political ideas and their expression underwent rapid change.

History Options Semester A
Students choose one from either

• The Family in Pre-industrial Society (Concepts and Debates strand) - Students will look at a number of ways in which historians have studied the family in Britain between c.1500 and 1800.

Or

• Environmental History (Concepts and Debates) - Here you consider the history of human interaction with the environment and nature as well as how economic, cultural and social change has shaped the natural world.

History options Semester B
Students choose one from either:

• Themes in Regional and Local History (Sources and Methods) - Students are allowed to develop an understanding of some key issues and discussions on the definition and practice of local and regional history.

Or

• Representation of History: Multi-media (Sources and Methods) - This module provides students with the opportunity to consider recent debates concerning the nature of history and the way in which it is presented in the form of ‘public history’. It also allows students to present history in the form of a computer based multimedia application/presentation.

Political Parties, Elections and Voting
This module will cover a variety of issues relating to political parties in the United Kingdom. The political science literature covers a wide variety of topics around parties. Amongst those which are examined in this module are the following; the historical development of parties; the role of parties in terms of mobilisation of support, electioneering and campaigning, recruitment of personnel; representation of the electorate and issue-based politics; and the partisan divide. These will be examined primarily within the context of a discussion of the three major parties within the British political system including their development, their ideological tenets and their contemporary positions. However, towards the end of the module these will be set against the position of other parties within the UK including the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the Northern Irish parties, to which will be added a comparative perspective, drawing upon the roles and experiences of parties in Western Europe.

Law Order & Politics
At the heart of debate on law and order is the balance between a need for states to maintain civic order and to protect the rights of the individual. One of the defining characteristics of the state is the right to use violence. Although a necessary power, it is one fraught with danger, evoking fears of a ‘police state’ or a military dictatorship, and the world is full of examples of how real this threat is. The Law, Order and Politics module seeks to use a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject area that crosses all boundaries. To this end we investigate concepts and practices in our own country, Britain, and then go on to examine the processes of globalization with crime and the growing significance of different historical and cultural experiences of law, order and social control.

Politics options
Students will be able to choose from the following:

• Comparative Politics & Policy (option) - The use of comparative methodology in the social sciences is neither value-free nor uncontroversial. Nevertheless this module proceeds with the belief that comparative methodology can be a useful tool for social and political analysis.

• Thinking Politics (option) - Thinking Politics examines the historical background to the various strands of political thought and ideas. In doing this, it builds upon some of the major ideas and concepts introduced at level one, by illustrating linkages between political theories and other aspects of politics. In particular, reference is made to key thinkers who have left their intellectual imprint on political ideas and beliefs. Specific reference is made to the work of Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Bentham, Mill, and Marx in order to assess the contribution that each has made to political theory and the extent to which they had a more or less lasting impact upon the practice and analysis of politics. This module provides the theoretical underpinnings needed to facilitate a thorough understanding of political ideas and belief. This module involves an examination of what constitutes ideology and a detailed investigation of the dominant ideologies from the French Revolution right up to and including the collapse of communism.

• Researching Politics and International Relations (option) - This module systematically scrutinises examples of research undertaken in the subject areas of Politics and International Relations. One of the main aims of the module is to enable students to understand, in concrete terms, what constitutes research in Politics and IR and how the research process leads to the production of specific research outputs including dissertations, theses, published academic articles and research monographs. In addition, the module aims to provide students with the knowledge base necessary for the production of research proposals and outputs.

Level Three

History Options level 3
At level three, students have to take at least one ‘Sources and Methods’ module and at least one ‘Concepts and Debates’ module. In total, 4 single semester modules over the two semesters. Choices per semester are shown below:

History Options Semester A

• The Middle Class in Urban Britain, 1780-1900 (Concepts and Debates) - Students will examine how the urban form reflected and constructed nineteenth century middle class identities.

• Imperial History: Britain and Empire, c. 1850-1968 (Concepts and Debates) - This module considers some of the central issues which characterised the relationship between Britain and its Empire from the mid-nineteenth century, the high point of imperial confidence, to the introduction of the second Race Relations Act.

• History and Computing (Sources and Methods) - Students are provided with an introduction to the practical application of IT skills to historical research, as well as a critical appraisal of its potential and limitations.

• Coal, Culture and Community, 1842-1985 (Sources and Methods) - Students examine the relationship between the coal industry and the communities which developed around it. It explores the period from the exclusion of women workers underground in 1842 to the end of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike.

• Sport in American Culture (American elective – American Studies module) - Examine the development of modern American sport and the myriad ways sports have shaped American culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

• Representations of the First World War (Culture and Identity) - This module examines some of the many representations of the First World War which developed in Europe and the British Empire in the twentieth century. A variety of different media will be considered including film, fiction, poetry and sculpture.

• Weimar Culture and Society (Culture and Identity) - Students will investigate the relationship between ideological and political struggles and cultural production. The focus will be on ‘high culture’ texts such as novels and films, as these tend to be more easily available in translation or with subtitles in English.

• The European Union since 1945 (State and Society) - This module will focus on the process of economic and political integration, which has taken place in Western Europe since 1945. The emphasis will be placed on the global forces which have shaped, and are still shaping, this process of integration.

History Options Semester B

• Russia 1861-1945 (Concepts and Debates) - One of the primary objectives of this module is to further develop skills of interpretive analysis acquired at levels 1 and 2. Students are asked to apply these skills to competing narratives portraying Russian history in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries.

• The Social Construction of Sexuality 1780-1830 (Concepts and Debates) - This unit challenges the notion that sexuality is ‘natural’ behaviour. Through the examination of literary sources, the module will investigate how, during the period under scrutiny, sexuality has been constructed (and re-constructed).

• Film and History (Sources and Methods) - Here, students will consider film as a cultural artefact which can be used as primary source for the exploration of social tensions, fears, anxieties and changing values of a society. As the focus will be on the Western as a genre, the question will also be asked as to how these concerns shape representations of the past.

• Victory Culture: America during the Cold War (American elective American Studies module) - This module examines some of the key social, political, economic, and diplomatic developments in the United States between 1945-1990. The key theme of the module is the rise, fall and resurgence of American triumphalism—a narrative of triumph against all odds—between Hiroshima and the Gulf War.

• China and the West, 1793-1911 (Culture and Identity) - This module examines concepts of cultural identity and belief by exploring western contacts with China during the period 1793-1911, a well-documented era of unusually intense cultural conflict and change. The focus will be on specific documented events that exemplify key aspects of cultural conflict and change.

• British Youth Culture, 1950-1980 (Culture and Identity) - Students will consider the complexities and contradictions of youth culture in Britain between c1950 and c1980. Consideration will be given to the social, political and economic forces which brought about cultural change in the post-war period. The module will then consider the way in which youth culture and a variety of youth sub-cultures manifested themselves through behaviour, music, literature, film, fashion , recreational drugs, politics and sexuality.

• Ireland: The Politics of Home Rule (State and Society) - Students explores the political relations between Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom which have been cross-cut by a number of traditions – Nationalism, Liberalism, Unionism and Republicanism for instance. This module examines some of the complexities in the struggles between these movements over the period from the 1860s to the 1920s.

Anti- Politics (double unit)
Politics and political participation tends dominantly to be understood in terms of formal processes associated with the institutional state, especially the liberal democratic state. But politics extends beyond such a conception to include groups and associations in civil society which, through association, protest and the establishment of alternatives, challenge formal politics and seek to take the meaning of politics and political action and association beyond liberal democratic definitions. Such forms are often referred to as anti-systemic politics. This module examines various forms of political activity and association beyond the formal liberal democratic state. It starts by examining the relationship between liberal democracy and old social movements and considers fundamental challenges to conceptions of politics, drawn from this framework, such as globalisation. The module then traces distinct challenges to liberal democratic politics emanating from civil society, notably various forms neoliberalism, and alternative new social movements. The module concludes by considering projects for the remoulding of politics, post-globalisation, such as cosmopolitanism.

Level 3 Politics options
Students will be able to choose 30 CATS worth of options:

• Semester A: Human Rights - This module addresses the general ideas of Human Rights and focuses in particular on the critical reading of Human Rights as one single universal paradigm. The practical critique of Human Rights proposed in this module is founded on the belief that Human Rights must and can be improved. The three main propositions outlined in this module relate to the concept of Human Rights presented as if they are universal; the notion that Human Rights pertain to a logic which focuses on the individual to the neglect of solidarity and other social values, and the fact that the meaning of Human Rights derives from a reasoning which is far too abstract. (15 CATs)

• Semester B: Body Politics - This module introduces the students to different paradigms of the ‘body’ and ‘embodiment’. Recent research suggests that our understandings and our relationship with our own and other ‘bodies’ has been and is continuing to undergo radical changes. This module will explore these ongoing developments in Western and non-Western cultures and societies.(15 CATs)

• Double Semester Option : War Crimes and Genocide - This module is constructed as an attempt to understand the ‘anatomy’ of war crimes and genocide – their origins, ideological basis, socio-political contexts, the techniques and technologies used - and whether there are precedented and unprecedented aspects to such phenomena. It is organised as a set of thoughts, springboards for further consideration on the historical, philosophical, political and sociological aspects of war crimes and genocide and for this reason it is particularly appealing to students who wish to develop a wider understanding of academic disciplines such as criminology, sociology, anthropology, international relation studies, politics, psychology, law and modern and contemporary history. (30 CATs)

• Double Semester Option: Politics Independent Study - In this unit, students, having agreed a topic with a tutor, have the opportunity to study in depth an author or topic of their choice. Students have regular, one-to-one meetings with a tutor specialising in their area of interest who offers advice and direction, but primarily this unit encourages independent research and independent thought leading to the production of a 10,000-word dissertation. (30 CATs)

This course is concerned with manifestations of power and politics both in the past and the present, and in a variety of places. It gives the opportunity to bring together two very closely-related fields and benefit from the cross-fertilisation of concepts and methods.

What Skills Will I Need?

In both History and Politics you will need to think for yourself, analyse texts and other data, and work with conceptual and theoretical frameworks. These skills will be developed by the course itself but it will be helpful if you have some experience of them.

What Will I gain From the Course?

This course will give you an analytical and critical approach to the understanding of contemporary politics with the added benefit of an historical context. It thus aims to produce graduates who are both highly employable and also responsible and informed citizens.

Skills learnt on this course prepare our graduates for careers in areas such as teaching, the civil service, law, accountancy, librarianship, museum work, arts administration, personnel, marketing, the media and postgraduate study.

2012 Entry	UK/EU	International
Full-time	£9000	£10499
Part-time	£75 per credit point	£88 per credit point
Placement (optional)	Exempt	Exempt
Assessment Only	£38 per credit point	£44 per credit point

For further information and funding your studey please see our Fees & Funding pages.

Fees and Funding