The core element in History is provided by the module The Contemporary World since 1945, which explores key historical debates concerning the immediate origins of the world in which we now live. In addition you will be able to select more specific optional modules from an extensive menu, covering an extremely wide chronological and geographical range.
The range of options in East European Cultural Studies at this level includes a broad coverage of cultural studies, literature and history. You will also be able to start or continue with the study of Russian or Serbian/Croatian.
The British Empire from Emancipation to the Boer War
This module examines the history of the British Empire from the end of the slave trade in 1833-4 to the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899-1902. The module is divided into three major geographic and chronological sections. In the first part of the course, we will discuss the British Caribbean, with a particular focus on the transition from slavery and the period of instability in the decades that followed. In the second part, we will focus on India and the changeover from East India Company rule to the direct administration by the British government in the wake of the Indian Mutiny (aka “the Sepoy Rebellion”). In the final section, we will discuss Britain’s participation in the “Scramble for Africa” and the rise of “popular imperialism” with the 2nd Anglo-Boer War. The final, pre-revision class meeting will also discuss the metropolitan aspects of empire, examining London’s status as “the Imperial Metropolis.
Screening Russia: Film and Society from the Tsars to Putin
If you are studying Russian or East European Cultural Studies, this is an optional year-long module. It examines Russian society and culture as reflected in popular and influential films from 1900 to the present day, covering a variety of genres (including melodramas, biopics, youth films and musical comedies).
Lectures and seminars examine Russian and Soviet cinema’s historical contexts and reception, as well as how films are constructed technically. You develop skills in analysing cinema in its historical and social contexts, from the products of the burgeoning industry of late imperial Russia to post-Soviet arthouse films and blockbusters – via the extraordinary legacy of Soviet cinema. All the films covered are available with subtitles, and this module does not require any prior study of film.
Repression and Resistance: Dissidents and Exiles in Russian Culture
The relationship between the state and the intellectual in Russia has traditionally been a problematic one, marked by repression, persecution, forced and voluntary exile and censorship. Political concern and resistance to an authoritarian state are central themes in the Russian cultural and literary tradition as well as a defining feature in the lives and works of numerous Russian writers and intellectuals.
We will explore the cultural tradition and identity of the literary intelligentsia in Russian and Soviet history. We'll also examine different responses to the experience of state persecution in the work of writers and artists.
Covering an extensive period of Russian history we will look at examples of writers and artists who have defied the state.
Wider questions which will be discussed include the role of the artist and the intellectual in Russian culture, the myth of the persecuted writer and the complex relationship between the intellectual and the masses.
The World of Orthodox Sainthood
You'll gain an understanding of the growth and development of the cult of saints in the Eastern Christian world in the context of the history and culture of late antiquity and the middle ages.
We focus on the interpretation of original written sources and icons, allowing you to master the basic tools for conducting research in the field.
Serbian and Croatian Literature: 20th Century
This module examines major literary movements in Serbia and Croatia during the 20th century, from Modernism to the socially engaged literature of the 1930s, socialist realism, literary politics under the Communists in Yugoslavia and the emergence of critical literature in the 1980s and 1990s.
You will undertake a textual analysis of representative works from 20th century literature: for example, works by Miloš Crnjanski, Ivo Andrić, Miroslav Krleža, Danilo Kiš and Slobodan Selenić (all works may be studied in English translation).
History of Yugoslavia and Successor States since 1941
This module covers the history of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, formed after WWII. We will discuss key economic and political factors of the state’s creation and disintegration, as well as Yugoslavia’s individuality during the Cold War.
Other topics for discussion include gender and social inequalities, nationalism and its rise, and circumstances surrounding the state’s collapse into the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
Plague, Famine and Flood: Crisis and Change in English Society, 1250-1540
The later middle ages was a period of stark contrasts. From a population explosion and dynamic economic expansion at the end of the thirteenth century through the dark years of famine and plague of the fourteenth century, to the social and economic upheavals of the fifteenth century, this was a world that contemporaries believed had been turned upside down. This module examines how medieval society weathered these changes and the ways historians have tried to explain them. Translated medieval documents, which allow students to get as close as possible to the medieval people themselves, are a central element of the module.
Soviet State and Society
This module examines political, social and economic transformations in the Soviet Union from the October Revolution of 1917 to Gorbachev’s attempted reforms and the collapse of the state in 1991. You will look at Russia both from the top down (state-building strategies; leadership and regime change; economic and social policy formulation and implementation) and from the bottom up (societal developments and the changing structures and practices of everyday life). You will usually spend three hours in lectures and seminars each week.
Germany in the Age of Extremes, 1890s-1990
The module analyses the formation of the modern German state through the combined processes of nation-building and industrialization, and the multiple tensions that characterized it in the decades following unification: class conflict, ethnic tensions and problems of the constitution. The module examines how the First World War and the German revolution intensified these tensions, which proved incapable of resolution in the period of democracy that followed. It goes on to consider the crisis of the democratic state, the rise of National Socialism and its unleashing of war and genocide. Finally, it analyses the de-nazification and division of the country after the Second World War, the politics of memory in the 1950s and 60s and the reconciliation between West Germany and Eastern Europe in the early 1970s.