This module is designed to support you in embarking on advanced historical research, and it aims to help you develop the skills needed to complete your undergraduate dissertation. Through this module, you will be guided through the cognitive and analytical steps you will need to take to define your future dissertation topic, construct a detailed research proposal, conduct a reflexive feasibility study for your project, present your preliminary findings, and respond to feedback from academics in the department.

The module aims to guide you to design your research proposal, locate it in its relevant historiographical field, test its viability and scope of available sources, as well as produce outlines, detailed structures and bibliographies for your project. The module makes use of both standard and innovative forms of delivery, with a combination of lectures, online talks, drop-in consultation sessions, and one-to-one consultation sessions with potential supervisors and course convenors.

What our students say:

‘The lectures greatly helped me in understanding how I will accomplish the dissertation.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘The guest speakers were particularly interesting and provided a lot of insight [...] which helped me understand how to use the archives themselves.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

This module aims to provide you with a solid introduction to the discipline of history at the beginning of your Part-II studies. The module, accordingly, explores the discipline at large, including: its characteristic practices, methods and traditions; its use of different source materials; and its relation not just to the past, but also to the present and the future.

The module includes three thematic blocks. The first section (Contexts of History) provides an overview of different types of historical scholarship, focusing on the methods, theories and intellectual tendencies that characterise them. The second section (Sources and Evidence) examines the use and application of different types of sources as evidence in historical research. The third section (History in Public) considers the public role and function of the discipline, as well as the challenges that historians have faced in the public spotlight, and, finally, the role that the study of history can play in your future.

What our students say:

‘I appreciated the perspective each lecturer brought on how history is written in their area of expertise. It was both fascinating and highly informative. The seminars were also very helpful and overall very good.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘I liked the seminars, and I liked the range of sources we learned about.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

This module invites you to explore the history of an object that is of crucial importance to our ideas about both human health and human identity – the mind. A Global History of the Mind will give you the opportunity to explore how societies across a wide range of times and places have sought to understand, cure and control the mind. Drawing on materials and case studies from around the world, whether modern-day Polynesia or the medieval Middle East, this offers a truly global perspective on the history of the mind.

At the same time, the module encourages you to explore the connections between changing ideas about mental health and sickness to broader questions about human identity – most notably those concerning race, gender and the potential loss of human distinctiveness in a world where artificial intelligence is possible. Unlike traditional courses on mental health, which almost invariably focus on the emergence and spread of western psychiatry, this module offers a decentered perspective. We will examine the mind from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, bringing together philosophy, medicine, religion, race, gender, and social control. In so doing, we will explore questions of urgent relevance to our own society – most notably the ways in which ideas about the mind have featured in the racialization and gendering of people through systems of patriarchy and colonialism. In addition, this module will use case studies from history to give you the resources to consider and question modern ideas about the mind and its role in society.

As well as completing a traditional essay assignment, this module includes a group podcasting assignment. Working together with your classmates, you will develop the skills to put together your own podcast on the history of the mind.

What our students say:

‘The seminars were wonderful. We looked at some quite complicated ideas, but the lecturer led them in a way that enabled us to think for ourselves and come to our own understandings on the topics, without making us feel stupid for not getting things straight away.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘I really enjoyed how the module looked at a lot of different periods/countries. It had a good range and was fascinating.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

This course offers a new introduction to a formative and exciting period in Mediterranean history after the fall of Rome and the rise of the Arabs. The main focus is on the central Mediterranean, especially Sicily and southern Italy, which was the rich prize for competing empires of the region: the contracting Byzantine empire and the expanding Muslim empire in North Africa. The course covers about 500 years of history through the medium of a range of sources, including archaeological finds, and rare documentary sources, which will be studied in translation.

Are you interested in environmental history? Are you curious about the forces that have shaped and continue to shape the perception and management of protected landscapes around the world? Then this 15-credit module is for you. Over the 10 weeks of this module, we’ll explore the long history of human interactions with the natural world, from the Agricultural Revolution to the Industrial Revolution to the Environmental Revolution. For the most part, though, we’ll focus on examining the forces that have influenced human perceptions of the environment from later seventeenth century onwards. In this context, we’ll trace the histories of iconic protected landscapes in different parts of the world, including national parks and world heritage sites, such as Yosemite, the English Lake District and Uluru-Kata Tjuta. In tracing the histories of these and other landscapes, we’ll delve into a range of important questions. Addressing these questions may involve: examining the role of colonialism and conquest in shaping such landscapes; interrogating the relation of protected landscapes to the emergence of ideas about national memory and identity; considering issues of access, responsibility and ownership, as well as the threats climate change poses for protected landscapes that are at risk. No prior knowledge of environmental history is assumed or required. Specific case studies may change from year to year. The module may involve field trips.

This module examines the social, cultural and political effects of one of the major upheavals of the 16th century: the Reformation. Focussing on the troubled course of the English Reformation from around 1517 until the end of the 16th century, the module explores how far the significant religious and political changes of the Tudor period were assimilated or resisted by the English population.

The module takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining textual, visual and musical sources to investigate when the English Reformation really took place, how successfully reformed thinking was disseminated among the people, and how political and religious changes affected people's day-to-day lives. It focuses in particular on popular politics and rebellion. It is taught through ‘creative learning’ methods as well as traditional seminar discussions.

What our students say:

‘Jenni really brought 16th century Britain to life. You can tell that she knows how to teach, not just drop a ton of information to her students, and this obviously is very helpful. The workshop activities were always well thought out and engaging. I really enjoyed the perspective she brought to us through ballads/music, and the experience of the lay-people in the early modern period. I also feel my ability to find primary sources, and analyse them was greatly improved through the workshops. I thoroughly enjoyed this module.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘The workshops were valuable for actually understanding the content and developing skills to best use the learned knowledge. I really appreciated that we weren't just talking about what we read, but actually doing something with the knowledge. I also really enjoyed and appreciated the blog post assignment – it helped me to develop skills which were otherwise neglected so far in my university education. It was challenging to write in a way that was less formal, but also really valuable, especially considering that this is a skill probably needed in most careers! It was clear that there was real consideration given to how this module would help develop our academic abilities and wider transferable skills. Overall a really good module, in both how it was constructed and taught.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

What does it mean to die? Does it hurt? Is it frightening? Will I see those I love again? What does it mean to kill, whether an enemy, a friend, or myself? Death is a universal human experience, a cataclysm, triumph or adventure we all confront. But how we do that has varied vastly across history. In the European Middle Ages, the Church’s doctrines shaped ideas of death, from burial in the consecrated ground of churchyards to the theology of heaven, hell and purgatory. The living and the dead were a community: those on earth could speed the dead through their passage in the afterlife, and those in heaven could intercede for the living. Yet at the margins lay a shadowy world, in which the restless dead returned to haunt those left on earth, and the despairing took their lives in an act known as ‘self-murder’.

In this module, we explore varied experiences of death across the medieval centuries in the Christian West, from end-of-life care to execution, and from battlefields to the Black Death. We discover the different means of investigating death, from the chronicles that describe the walking dead, to the archaeology of burial practice, and from murder trials to palaeogenetics, unlocking the passage of disease. This is, by nature, a disturbing field of study. But what we learn cuts to the heart of what it means to be human – in the past and today.

During the 16th century, Europe witnessed some of the most important developments in the shaping of the modern world. Although you will learn about these events, the module will focus on the broader historical processes through which you can understand them. At the same time, you will engage with the methodologies and debates that historians of the present-day find most interesting, critically appraising their strategies for assessing patterns of historical change and continuity.

You will therefore examine the work of environmental historians, asking whether transformations in society and the economy can be explained by changes in climate. The module will also ask whether colonial expansion led people to develop new ideas about racial and cultural difference, while at the same time trying to understand how newly colonized people tried to navigate their way through new hierarchies and relationships.

In addition, it will ask whether long-standing questions about transformations in religious life, popular culture, and the centralization of government, can be enriched by approaching them through the prism of new approaches. When you study the body, health, and disease, for instance, you’ll discuss the unexpected role of medical expertise in the development of a renewed form of Catholicism at the end of the 16th century. Meanwhile, focusing on the history of printed news may enable you to understand why rumours and religious bigotry spread so rapidly during the Reformation and Wars of Religion.

What our students say:

‘I really loved working with the lecturer for this module, he made the lectures interesting and chose to approach the topics in ways which I had personally not encountered. The seminars too were informative with proper discussion going on, really expanding on the lectures while still being relevant to them.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘This was my favourite module I did this term. An area of the module I valued was the fact that it was not taught in any type of chronological order, with every week being about a different topic about the early modern period, it kept me engaged every week. The lecturer was excellent; it was clear that he not only loves the material based on how enthusiastic he was, but also that he wanted us to love the material as well.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

History students at Lancaster University are offered the chance to take part in work placements in the heritage sector, with our partners ranging from prominent multi-site organisations, such as the National Trust, to small independent museums. We also work with local authority archives and heritage charities. All second-year History Students are eligible to apply for an accredited placement that counts towards your degree. Reasonable travel expenses are covered, and in some circumstances we can pay for overnight accommodation near the placement location. It is worth noting that voluntary placements in a wide variety of settings are organised by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences: you can undertake one of these in addition to your degree studies but it won’t be assessed, unlike the placements available through HIST299.

This module gives you the opportunity to find out what it is really like to work in a museum, archive, stately home or other heritage setting whilst developing your skillset and enhancing your employability. You will work on a project that will have a real impact in some aspect of the work of the heritage organisation, and gain a range of insights into the challenges faced by the sector.

Students who have completed this module have gone on to be accepted onto highly competitive postgraduate training in Museums Studies, Archival Studies and also teacher training. One student, who was placed with the National Trust at Sizergh Castle, said: “I recommend both HIST299 and this placement, particularly to students who want to get practical experience of using historical skills.”

HIST215: Introduction to Latin Translation for Undergraduates

This is a special intensive course for students who have little or no previous knowledge of Latin. The course concentrates on the basics of Latin Grammar and vocabulary as used in the Medieval period. However, it will also be very useful for students of the Roman and Renaissance periods. By the end of the course, students should be able to read sources such as title deeds, court rolls, government records, wills, and inscriptions.

Perhaps more formative for the modern British state than any before or since, the years 1660 to 1720 saw Britain’s territorial boundaries and infrastructure forged, with constitutional monarchy, expanding state bureaucracy, and political parties as its principal tenets. During the same period, political power in England changed hands; new political personnel operated within novel political institutions and voiced innovative political economies.

Making Modern Britain will challenge participants to analyse and debate formative changes to British literature, commerce, art and architecture as well as to discuss the changed relationship between Britain and the world during this period. Participants will therefore receive a broad understanding of late 17th and early 18th century British history; they will also develop expertise in the following subfields: cultural, art, political, parliamentary, global, economic, constitutional, gender, and business history.

What our students say:

‘The access to databases for sources was very useful. The structure of the module was very valuable and easy to follow. The workshops were really useful, with them being more than an hour, because I felt like they improved my understanding of all the reading and all the content in the lectures.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘Learning more about the economic state of Britain; the way the connections between lectures and readings were handled. Even if it was more challenging to do, it really forced you to think about the module and its contents critically.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

The social and cultural consequences of the Norman Conquest of England were deep and enduring. A foreign, Francophone regime displaced the native élites: many of the former rulers, women as well as men, fled the kingdom. Enlisting in the Varangian Guard, some English warriors even went as far as Byzantium and the Crimea. The new regime was inclusive as much as it was eager to recruit foreigners of all kinds — Frenchmen, Bretons, Lotharingians, Italians, Spaniards, and even Jews — so long as they were serviceable and loyal; but racist as much as it strove to deny persons of English descent access to high office. The English were denigrated as barbarians and peasants, but because the Conquest was not followed by sustained settlement from the Continent, many natives clung on in sub-altern positions, just below the foreigners who held the highest offices and the best estates. The English were also far from being the only victims: the regime also continued the later Anglo-Saxon state’s efforts to subjugate Wales and northern Britain.

As a wide-ranging introduction to the history of Norman England and the debates that it has inspired, this module allows you to consider the history and effects of this transformative event.

What our students say:

‘Paul is an amazing tutor who always provides relevant information and details’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘I enjoyed learning about one of the most fateful events in British history since the Anglo-Saxon conquest and settlement of the Great British lowlands.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

Some twenty years ago, the mass digitisation of historic materials catapulted historians from the ‘Age of Scarcity’ into the ‘Age of Abundance.’ Vast amounts of printed text, images, maps, objects and ephemera have since been digitised and delivered to audiences in keyword searchable form. Digital archives, such as British Library Newspapers, Early English Books Online, Eighteenth-Century Collections and Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, have long been the first point of call for historians. Ancestry and Findmypast’s capitalisation on the well-documented boom in family history means we can now access the census, birth, marriage and death records and other social and personal records at the touch of a button. Add in publicly funded, open access resources such as Old Bailey Online, Slave Voyages, Digital Panopticon and countless others to the mix, digital historians have been particularly well-served by the creation of the Western print archive 2.0.

But an over-reliance on digital collections has the potential for historians to be less critically reflexive about online resources, so we need to open the ‘black box’ of digital archives and develop new forms of source criticism. On the module, you will evaluate the ‘infinite archive’ and experiment with a range of tools, that may include artificial intelligence, heritage mapping, crowdsourcing, and data visualisation. You will develop a digital historians’ toolkit that provides a beginner-level introduction to the debates, concepts, and techniques used in digital history. These techniques can be applied to a wide range of historical topics. As well as providing you with an understanding of the new ways in which historians are researching their discipline, these skills can be applied to other modules, such as your dissertation, and provide transferable skills that can enhance employability.

What our students say:

‘I really enjoyed the module. [...] It offered an insight into a different approach to studying History.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

This module allows you to explore the story of the German Kingdom from the mid-9th century until the early 12th. Formed amid the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, it came close to collapse in the early 10th century, yet it was saved by the Magyar crisis, emerging triumphant under the leadership of a new and charismatic dynasty, the Liudolfings. They re-founded the kingdom, turning it into the most dynamic state in 10th-century Europe. The vast empire they created — the so-called ‘Holy Roman Empire’ — would endure until 1804 when it was finally suppressed by Napoleon Buonaparte; but in the mid-eleventh century the power of its monarchs was hollowed out by a savage crisis from which the realm would never entirely recover — a devastating civil war that lasted five decades, from the mid-1070s until 1122.

This stunning narrative raises many questions. Why did it all go ‘right’? Why did it then go so ‘wrong’? This dramatic story provides fundamental insights into the nature of the medieval kingdom, its capacities and its limitations.

What our students say:

‘This module was very enjoyable; the period was engaging and interesting; the seminars were very beneficial in helping to decipher interesting yet challenging sources which I can use later in my degree.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘Lectures were informative and well-organised, seminar readings were easy to access’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

The Roman Empire stretched from Britain to modern-day Syria, from Morocco to Romania. How did Rome control an empire which ranged from the societies of the Mediterranean basin to those of Arabia and temperate northern Europe? How did the peoples of these regions adapt to, or indeed resist, ‘becoming Roman’?

This module will give you a thorough foundation in the history of the Roman Empire from the first emperor Augustus in the 1st century BCE to late antiquity and the rise of Christianity in the 4th century CE. You will study the immense social, economic and religious changes that occurred across Europe and the Near East in this period, as well as the political and military history of the Empire. You will confront the challenges of writing Roman history from textual sources that are often fragmentary or have political and rhetorical agendas which are alien to us today. You will also learn to integrate material evidence, from coins and inscriptions to archaeology, into your understanding of the Roman Empire.

What our students say:

‘As someone who didn't know a lot on the topic, the lectures were very informative in helping me to build up my knowledge and the readings were accessible but still challenging... Reading about archaeology was also a very different approach to what I'm used to and greatly helped me with analysing physical sources rather than only written works.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘Eleri is a phenomenal lecturer and seminar tutor. She is very engaging, attentive, and helpful... I think the most valuable aspect of the material itself was how well-rounded it was. Rather than just focusing on the city of Rome, or on religion, or culture, or otherwise, we got a well-rounded overview of the entire empire.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

Between 1500 and 1865, Europeans embarked twelve and a half million captive Africans on slave ships for transportation to the Americas, the largest forced trans-oceanic migration in human history.

In this module, you will study the slave trade in the broader context of Atlantic history. You will first see how slavery diminished in Europe during the late Middle Ages, just as Europeans began to systematically explore the Atlantic basin. You will then study the rapid expansion of the trade after Columbus’ voyages, as Europeans enslaved increasing numbers of Africans to work in the fields, mines, and ports of the Americas. Focusing on the 17th and 18th centuries, you will look closely at how the trade operated, and how Africans experienced their enslavement.

You will also study north-west England’s connections to the slave trade by investigating how Liverpool and Lancaster merchants outfitted slave ships and profited from the trade, and the slave trade’s influence on industrialization. In the concluding section of the module, you will see how the slave trade was abolished in the early 19th century, and the persistence of a clandestine trade until the end of the American Civil War.

What our students say:

‘The lectures and seminars were both great and extremely helpful in thinking critically and from a new perspective, which was invaluable in helping me to write the course's essay, but also helped me with my other coursework.’ (Anonymous student evaluations)

Virginia was the founding point of the presence of English people in North America, and of the first Africans in English-speaking America. This module considers the problems of founding a new society in the Americas during the earliest years of English adventurism. We will explore topics such as slavery, the ethics of land claim, the relations between pre-settled peoples and newcomers, trade, commodities like tobacco, and the emerging tensions between England and the colonies.

The module begins, chronologically, with the earliest voyages to the North American mainland, the adventurism of Sir Walter Raleigh and the settlements on Roanoke Island and Chesapeake, the relationship with the Powhatan Confederacy, and the Lost Colony. It then moves its attention to the Virginia Company and the settlement of Jamestown and explores the different experiments by successive governors – John Smith and Sir Thomas Dale in particular – to build a stable and workable community. It looks at the introduction of tobacco, the switch towards a plantation economy and society using slave labour, and the fall of the Company. Finally, it explores the problems of proprietary government, and ends with the governorship of Sir William Berkeley and the rebellion for ‘liberty’ under Nathaniel Bacon, which marked the enslavement of indigenes and Africans.

What our students say:

‘The sources included within the lectures were excellent in terms of highlighting broader themes and the overall narrative. The seminars were also particularly useful in terms of reflecting on the entire module’. (Anonymous student evaluations)

‘[I enjoyed] the innovative approach Sarah took to the historiography, and the emphasis on the primary source material’. (Anonymous student evaluations)

You will spend this year working in a graduate-level placement role. This is an opportunity to gain experience in an industry or sector that you might be considering working in once you graduate.

Our Careers and Placements Team will support you during your placement with online contact and learning resources.

You will undertake a work-based learning module during your placement year which will enable you to reflect on the value of the placement experience and to consider what impact it has on your future career plans.

The Dissertation is a module that progresses from the methodological understandings acquired in Second-Year courses.

You will write a 10,000-word dissertation exploring a challenging historical problem. While, in many cases, we expect that the topic chosen will arise from courses you are studying, it should also be possible to accommodate topics which do not have a direct bearing on your taught courses. The aim is to give you the opportunity to work in depth on a topic of your choice, and to gain the satisfaction of working independently and of making a subject your own. Research for dissertations will usually combine work on secondary literature with the use of primary sources (in translation where necessary). You are expected to demonstrate knowledge of the wider historical context of the subject being explored by including a critical review of relevant published work and to show an awareness of the limitations of primary sources used.

The gods are encountered at every turn in the Roman Empire, but seldom in the same way or in the same places. This module explores the immense diversity of religious experience, practice, and belief in the Roman world in order to understand religion’s role in the shaping of society and identity across the Empire. You will learn to use a broad range of archaeological, epigraphic, iconographic and literary evidence to reconstruct the lived experience of religion in the Roman Empire, from gods worshiped by German soldiers on the rain-swept Romano-British frontier, to domestic shrines in the kitchens of Pompeii, to the great Greco-Roman pilgrimage sanctuaries of Asia Minor.

How can we use site plans to think about the experience of moving through a sanctuary? How do animal bones and pottery assemblages allow us to reconstruct the dynamics of religious sacrifice and ritual feasting? What insights do first-person accounts of encountering gods through dreams and visions by authors such as Aelius Aristides or Cicero give into personal relationships with the divine?

Through detailed analysis of primary material and in-depth engagement with modern scholarship on Roman religion, we will explore the complex role played by divine cults, sacred spaces, and religious identities in the construction of society across the vast geographic and chronological span of the Empire. You will also have the opportunity to take part in a field trip to sites and museums on Hadrian's Wall, to experience a range of temple locations and material evidence for Roman religion in person.

What our students say:

‘The lecturer’s enthusiasm and dedication was obvious – there was never a dull moment in the classroom and I really valued every single minute of those seminars. Genuinely some of the most fun I have had throughout my degree.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

The 13th century began with a rebellion that sought to cast a tyrant from the throne of England, followed after fifty years by a revolution, in which a party of barons and bishops backed by a vast popular following seized power from the king and set up a council to govern in his stead: a move that was utterly radical. This period has been hailed as the foundation of the enlightened democracy we enjoy today – but the reality is far darker. This was a world in which religious leaders had the power to punish kings, where rebels fought as sworn crusaders, and where people willingly went to their deaths for a political cause believing themselves martyrs. This world was not democratic, but theocratic.

In this module you will explore the major events of the period, in England and across Christendom; from the making of Magna Carta and the Fourth Lateran Council, to the Albigensian Crusade, the seizure of power in 1258, and the bloody Battle of Evesham that brought the end of England's First Revolution. You will meet the people who shaped this world – from powerful queens like Blanche of Castile and Eleanor of Provence, to leading knight William Marshal and the masterful pope Innocent III; from tyrannical and hapless kings to the churchmen who defied them and were recognised as saints; and from Simon de Montfort, the revolution's charismatic and brutal leader, to the low-born men and women who flocked to his banner. You will be able to uncover their stories through their letters, testimonies, and eye-witness accounts, and a wealth of other primary sources.

Through a range of topics, you will be able to explore your particular interests – whether in the political, religious, military, gender or social aspects of this period – and consider the big questions arising from this module: what can move women and men, poor and rich, to risk their livelihoods, to take life and give their own to decide who ruled the realm?

What our students say:

'Teaching is excellent and the seminars were a great opportunity to discuss our own ideas and talk things through with an expert in the field. The seminars were something I looked forward to every week and we had the opportunity to explore many of the primary source material for ourselves.' (Anonymous student evaluation)

'Many parts [were the most valuable] – from the development of a close-knit group, to the challenging yet interesting assessment work, to the feeling of really ‘mastering’ the subject.' (Anonymous student evaluation)

Today the claim that God designed everything in the universe has given way to the theory of evolution. The usual story of this change is one of conflict between science and religion. This module, however, will challenge the popular narrative.

Focusing on the period 1450 –1800, we will reconsider the rise and fall of the idea that nature was the work of a divine intelligent designer. As well as trying to understand why the design argument became so important in the early modern period, we will seek to understand why it fell out of favour during the 18th century – long before the theory of evolution.

But we will not simply be studying the history of ideas. To understand the role of design in early modern science, we will study a wide range of disciplines and practices – from intellectual disciplines like philosophy, rhetoric and theology, to material practices including chemistry, architectural design, archaeology and art.

What our students say:

‘The course structure, teaching and seminars were the most engaging and useful I’ve had over my three years at university’. (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘The engaging and interactive seminars allowed for a comfortable environment which made the subject more interesting and enjoyable’. (Anonymous student evaluation)

What did theatre look like before Shakespeare? How were devils and vices, divinity and virtue, coronations and carnivals staged during the Medieval period? This module will introduce you to a range of medieval drama, including mystery cycles, civic pageantry, morality plays and interludes, as we explore the weird and wonderful drama of towns, cities, and courts, and look at some of the earliest professional companies to identify the distinctive features of medieval English theatre. As well as reading texts, you will watch recordings of modern performances of medieval theatre. NB No prior knowledge of Middle English is required --the use of modern translations is encouraged to aid understanding.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

When Europeans first landed in Jamaica, they thought that they had arrived in paradise: a sun-kissed tropical island covered with virgin rainforests, dramatic mountains, and exotic flora and fauna. By the early nineteenth century, colonization had fundamentally transformed this supposedly pristine island. This module explores how this process occurred. You will study the numerous ways that colonists exploited the Jamaican environment: the clear-cutting of forests to make way for monoculture plantations; the importation of plants and animals to replace decimated native species; and the extraction and exhaustion of natural resources. You will simultaneously examine enslaved Africans' and Native Americans' environmental perspectives and see how both groups used Jamaica’s mountains and surviving forests to resist the violent process of colonization. We will conclude by examining the colonists’ growing awareness that they had transformed Jamaica’s climate and natural world, just as the island’s economy was fundamentally changed through emancipation. You will thus emerge from this module with a detailed understanding of the natural history of Jamaica—one of the most fascinating places in the Early Modern Atlantic World—and the exciting field of environmental history more broadly.

How are acts of desire, murder, fake and ‘real’ deaths represented on stage in early modern drama and how are these experiences gendered? This module will explore both the construction and deconstruction of death, desire, and genders, by focusing on performance. The performativity of gender, on stage and beyond, was materialised in the theatres of early modern England where boys played female roles, thus often representing both female desire and same-sex desire at the same time. We will study texts by Marlowe, Middleton, Heywood, Webster, Wroth as well as some contemporary productions and film adaptations. We will also engage in some short practical explorations -- such as getting the text ‘on its feet’; and the module will culminate in a series of short presentations and performances by the group. No previous experience of (or expertise in) acting is necessary.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

It has been argued that the Gothic, and the rise of the Gothic novel, is part of a history that goes back to long before the eighteenth century. This module therefore coins the term ‘Premodern Gothic’ to consider some of the ways in which a range of generically diverse texts produced in England between c.1450 and 1600 engage with Gothic tropes and sensibilities (ghosts, vampires, castles, darkness, magic, terror, and wonder etc.) long before the rise of the Gothic novel. Texts currently studied include: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and Thomas Nashe’s The Terrors of the Night.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

Ben Jonson claimed of Shakespeare ‘he was not of an age but for all time.’ This course examines Shakespearean drama and poetry in its own time: as a platform in which early modern debates about agency and government, family, national identity, were put into play, and in relation to how we perceive these issues now. The stage was and is a place in which questions of gender, class, race, gain immediacy through the bodies and voices of actors. By examining texts from across Shakespeare’s career, we will explore their power to shape thoughts and feelings in their own age and in ours. We will consider Shakespeare’s manipulation of genre (poetry, comedy, history, tragedy and romance) and the ways the texts make active use of language (verse, prose, rhyme, rhythm) and theatrical languages (costume, stage positions) to generate meaning. The course will consider how, in the past and in the present, Shakespeare’s texts exploit the emotional and political possibilities of poetry and drama.

As part of their assessment for this course, students may opt to take part in a full-scale public performance of one of the plays we have studied; this is usually staged at Lancaster Castle.

The English East India Company (founded 1600) was the most famous corporation in world history: its business connecting the British Isles across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. It was a protagonist of globalisation. Its longevity – from Elizabeth to Victoria – provides a common thread with which to illuminate the broader English/British story and the separate histories of the territories with which the Company engaged. Historians have debated what the Company represented. It did much to stimulate global trade, but was it a private business in the modern sense? It ruled British territory on behalf of the British state, but was it a state in its own right?

This module encourages you to engage with these (and other) large and important questions and digest the high-quality literature that the Company has rightly attracted. But the core of this class will be the challenge and joy of digesting the remarkable corpus of documents and writings that the Company issued or provoked from well-known political economists like Karl Marx and Adam Smith, to managers like Elizabeth Dalyson and non-European writers such as Mirza Abu Taleb Khan. You will be introduced to translated Persian documents, the correspondence of Company factors in Japan, charters, board room minutes, pamphlets, and histories and will explore art and architecture in the cities it did so much to develop. You will gain a broad understanding of 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century British, Indian, and global history; and develop expertise in cultural, art, political, parliamentary, global, economic, constitutional, gender, and business history.

What our students say:

‘The seminars really got the whole group involved and we've all really bonded as a result. The information was so valuable and really helpful for revision!’ (Anonymous student evaluation)

‘I really appreciated the one-on-one meetings for essay feedback. Having twenty minutes set aside specifically for it made the feedback feel much more comprehensive.’ (Anonymous student evaluation)