- Department: History
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
Emotions – love, hate, fear, anger - are often considered universal constants; common to humans in all times and places. Yet there has been significant variation in how emotions have been expressed, regulated and promoted in different periods and cultures. Emotions are commonly invoked in historical analysis: we might describe a particular era as an ‘age of anxiety’, or refer to the role of anger in political protest. Until relatively recently, however, historians did not tend to analyse the role, meaning and transformation of emotions in the past. This module will offer you the opportunity to engage with the dynamic and still developing field of the history of emotions.
The study of the emotions opens up a rich and varied set of historical questions, which we will address over the course of the semester. How do you research the history of something as seemingly intangible as emotions? What is the relationship between personal and collective emotion? How have ideas about emotions been used to reinforce social, racial and gendered hierarchies? Why has it been acceptable for men to cry openly in certain eras – for Achilles the greatest warrior of his age to weep copiously in Homer’s Illiad – but not in others? How and why have emotional cultures changed over time?
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Semester 2 2024-25 |
The aims of this module are:
Students who complete this module successfully will:
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1, then a 1-hour workshop and a 2-hour seminar in each of weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of the semester. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour workshops and eight 2-hour seminars in all.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) | 100 |
None
For formative assessment work, students will produce an essay plan relating to the themes and issues of the module.
For summative assessment students will complete an Open Exam in the assessment period.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Online Exam -less than 24hrs (Centrally scheduled) | 100 |
Following their formative assessment task, students will receive written feedback, which may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss their feedback during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission. For semester 1 assessments, the tutor will be available during student hours of the following semester for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
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: