Studying at York
Popular Politics? The history of British political culture since 1945 - Semester 1 - HIS00142H
- Department: History
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2023-24
Module summary
How do we write a history of political culture in modern Britain? What was politics like on the street, on doorsteps, in campaigns, protests, the media, in the popular mind and what sources can historians use to access this? Integrating official politics with a more grassroots approach, this course explores parties, elections, social movements, cultural and identity politics, the role of the media and, all-in-all, the shifting meaning of ‘the political’ since WWII. In the process it asks how and why political historians have shifted their focus to a history of political culture or, so to speak, from the body politic to the politics of bodies and emotions. Much as the course will discuss new initiatives and how politics was able to create new languages and practices, a subtext of the course will be to question quite how popular politics was. As such it will interrogate not just standard narratives, sources and chronologies of decline or consensus, but will take the issue of apathy more seriously than political historians have tended to. Primary sources range through key writings, speeches, diaries, pamphlets, posters, media images, opinion polls, manifestos and assorted ephemera of political activity.
Related modules
Students taking this module must also take the second part in Semester 2.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 1 2023-24 |
Module aims
The aims of this module are:
- To introduce students to in depth study of a specific historical topic using primary and secondary material;
- To enable students to explore the topic through discussion and writing; and
- To enable students to evaluate and analyse primary sources
Module learning outcomes
Students who complete this module successfully will:
- Grasp key themes, issues and debates relevant to the topic being studied;
- Have acquired knowledge and understanding about that topic;
- Be able to comment on and analyse original sources;
- Be able to relate the primary and secondary material to one another; and
- Have acquired skills and confidence in close reading and discussion of texts and debates.
Module content
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1 and a 3-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight three-hour seminars in all.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
- Method, Approach and Sources of Political History
- 1945
- The Future of Socialism to New Labour… and beyond
- Did gender trump class? Whatever happened to the working class?
- Cultures of Conservatism
- The New Right
- The New Left
- Liberalism triumphant?
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
For formative assessment, students will be given the opportunity to produce text commentaries in seminar, including a written commentary.
For the summative assessment students build a portfolio of two parts, to be submitted together:
a) Two text commentaries of 500-750 words; and
b) One 1,500-word essay which reflects on the significance of the chosen texts in light of scholarship and sources from across the module.
The commentaries comprise 50% and the essay 50% of the overall mark for this module. Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Module feedback
Formative work will be live marked in seminar and supplemented by the tutor giving oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For summative assessment tasks, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
Indicative reading
For semester time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
- Colin Hay, Why We Hate Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007).
- Matthew Hilton et.al., The Politics of Expertise: How NGOs shaped modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
- Emily Robinson, History, Heritage and Tradition in Contemporary British Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).