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| Unit name |
The Crisis of Modernity: Progress and Degeneration in fin-de-siecle Europe (Level C Special Topic) |
| Unit code |
HIST10034 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
C/4
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
|
| Unit director |
Dr. Evans |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None
|
| Co-requisites |
HIST13003 Special Topic Project.
|
| School/department |
Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Arts |
Description including Unit Aims
This unit offers an introduction to modern European history through a focus on the turbulent years between 1890 and 1914. This was a disorientating time for contemporaries, and one which has been diversely interpreted by historians. An ever-increasing spread of new technologies, growth of mass society, and expanding global connections seemed to offer the potential for undreamed development. Yet correspondingly, new fears - the threat of urban environments, the overturning of social norms, and feelings of deterioration and decline - reached a fever pitch. As (seemingly) old certainties began to break down, contemporaries drew on culture and the sciences to understand the promises and dangers of modern society, turning towards the biological, the psychological, the irrational, the artistic, the traditional, and the primitive. This course will use a range of sources to investigate how this occurred and how grappling with modernity fed into attempts to regulate, forestall or transform it.
Aims:
- To place students in direct contact with the current research interests of academic tutors and to enable them to explore the issues surrounding the state of research in the field.
- To introduce students to working with primary sources
- To introduce students to issues relating to setting primary sources in their wider context
- To introduce students to the practice of learning independently within a small-group context
- To introduce students to key themes and issues in modern European history.
- To encourage students to explore methods in intellectual history, the history of science, cultural history and comparative history.
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the unit students should have:
- Deepened their understanding of modern history, and learned how to connect this with work in other courses in contemporary history, imperial history and historical methodology.
- Learned to examine how ideas developed in the fields of culture and the sciences interacted with political and social debates.
- Identified and analysed the significance of key themes in modern European history, including: experiences of technological change; feelings of decline, development and degeneration; and the development of urbanized national societies.
- Gained an understanding of the methodologies in comparative history, the history of science, intellectual history, and cultural history, and how these can be combined to analyze particular historical periods and themes.
- Learned how to work with a range of primary sources
- Developed their skills in contributing to and learning from a small-group environment.
Teaching Information
- Tutorial feedback on essay
- Access to tutorial consultation with unit tutor in office hours
Assessment Information
1 x 2 hour exam
Reading and References
- J. Burrow, The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848-1914 (London, 2000)
- E. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (London, 1987)
- S. Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2003)
- G. Marshall, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Fin-de-Si�cle (Cambridge, 2007)
- D. Pick, Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c. 1848-c.1918 (Cambridge, 1989).
