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Unit information: Modern Girls and New Women in 2023/24

Unit name Modern Girls and New Women
Unit code HIST20146
Credit points 20
Level of study I/5
Teaching block(s) Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director Dr. Lewis
Open unit status Not open
Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units)

None

Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units)

None

Units you may not take alongside this one

None

School/department Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty Faculty of Arts

Unit Information

Why is this unit important?

Our Special Fields give you the opportunity to work at an advanced level alongside a single academic and a specialist area of research. Intensively taught through seminars only, they are designed to provide you with hands-on experience of how knowledge is produced in the discipline of History.

How does this unit fit into your programme of study?

Our Special Fields involve the application of the full spectrum of core historical competencies within a narrower field of study. In this sense, they are designed to prepare you to undertake independent research for yourself by showing you how practicing historians work with sources, historiographies, methodologies, and concepts within a particular specialism.

Your learning on this unit

An overview of content:

In the 1920s and 1930s, the 'Modern Girl' emerged as a global phenomenon from Beijing and Bombay to Cairo and Cape Town, as ‘New Women’ all over the world campaigned for political rights and widened access to education. This course examines the emergence of modern women throughout the Global South within a much longer history of colonialism, anti-colonial nationalism, and international feminism. We look at versions of the modern woman such as courtesans, suffragettes, prostitutes, feminists, female soldiers, and factory girls from the early modern era to the early twenty-first century. We look at how women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America shaped the history of internationalism and forged transnational activist networks. We work with images, film, literature, political tracts, and compare various global and national historiographies as a group. In doing so, we try to understand the challenges of modernity and gender equality for women in the wider world.

How will you be different as a result of this unit?

Special Field units will enhance your capacity to build arguments with primary sources, properly located within appropriate theories, concepts, methods, and historiographies.

Learning Outcomes:

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

  1. identify and analyse key themes in the history of feminism from a Global South perspective;
  2. understand and use historical methods specific to the study of Global South feminism;
  3. discuss and evaluate the historiographical debates that surround the topic;
  4. understand and interpret primary sources and select pertinent evidence in order to illustrate specific and more general historical points;
  5. present their research and judgements in written forms and styles appropriate to the discipline and to level I.

How you will learn

How you will learn:

Classes will involve a combination of class discussion, investigative activities, and practical activities. Students will be expected to engage with readings and participate on a weekly basis. This will be further supported with drop-in sessions.

How you will be assessed

Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):

3,500-word essay (50%) [ILOs 1-5].

Timed Assessment (50%) [ILOs 1-5].

When assessment does not go to plan

When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the format or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are confirmed by the School/Centre shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the year.

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. HIST20146).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.

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