HI2020: BIRTH OF MODERNITY: POLITICS, CULTURE AND SCIENCE IN EUROPE, 1700-1870 (2018-2019)

Last modified: 22 May 2019 17:07

Course Overview

Course introduces students to the crucible of the modern age. Hinging on the American, French and 1848 Revolutions, it explores how men and women in elite and popular communities generated new modes of living, experience and expression and how they understood and manipulated the natural world. Attention will be given to the Enlightenment, Revolution, Empire, Romanticism and Ideology with interrelated developments in politics, culture and science also being explored. Students will be introduced to the works of figures such as Newton, Voltaire, Paine, Goethe, Marx, Darwin and Nietzsche. Topics will include Salons, the Terror, nationalism and secularisation. Download course guide

Course Details

Study Type	Undergraduate	Level	2
Term	First Term	Credit Points	30 credits (15 ECTS credits)
Campus	None.	Sustained Study	No
Co-ordinators	Dr Elizabeth Macknight

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

Programme Level 2
Either Any Undergraduate Programme (Studied) or Programme Level 2

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

HI2018 Birth of Modernity: Politics, Culture and Science in Europe 1700-1870 (Studied)
HI2023 Birth of Modernity: Politics, Culture and Sci in Europe 1700-1870 (Dl) (Studied)

Are there a limited number of places available?

Course Description

This course introduces students to the crucible of the modern age. Hinging on the American, French and 1848 Revolutions, it explores how men and women in elite and popular communities generated new modes of living, experience and expression and how they understood and manipulated the natural world. Attention will be given to the Enlightenment, Revolutions, Empire, Romanticism and Ideology with interrelated developments in politics, culture and science also being explored. Students will be introduced to the works of figures such as Newton, Voltaire, Paine, Goethe, Marx, Darwin and Nietzsche. Topics will include Salons, the Terror, nationalism and secularisation.

The forging of, and resistance to, new ideas concerning the individual, gender, society, the state and the natural world generated a wide-ranging and vigorous debate, which held at its heart a vital sense of the actors as either self-consciously modern or reactionary. At the core of the course will therefore be a study of the notion of revolutionary change, both in its specifically political and its broader cultural meanings. Thus, the ways in which revolutions were generated across the period, and the impact they held for the populace which created and experienced them will be the central focus of each phase of the course.

The course will be broadly divided into four component elements, outlining the contours of the projects of Enlightenment, Revolution, Romanticism and Ideology. Lectures will highlight emblematic figures in each phase, and themes which link the different phases together. Particular attention will be given to the social context which generated and shaped actors, examining for instance, the rise of a reading public, the professionalisation of cultural activity, and the fragmentation of an ideal of universal knowledge.

Contact Teaching Time

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

Teaching Breakdown

More Information about Week Numbers

Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 30 August 2024 for 1st term courses and 20 December 2024 for 2nd term courses.

Summative Assessments

1st Attempt: Document Report of 2,000 words (40%); seminar participation (10%) and 2-hour examination (50%).

Resit: A two-hour written exam (100%).

Formative Assessment

Individual and group work in seminars.

Feedback

The document report will be returned on a one-to one basis to provide an initial indication of the students' skills and to identify areas for improvement. Similarly the essay will be returned one-to-one. It will build upon the skills identified in the document report, and provide an opportunity for those skills which were identied as weak to be developed. The emphasis will be on teaching academic and transferable skills including written expression, in-depth knowledge, effective synthesis and the conscise and coherent structuring of argument and deployment of information. The exam will assess the extent to which the stduent has fully achieved these objectuves and developed the requisite skill set.

Course Learning Outcomes