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HIL203 Writing Women’s Histories
This module traces the shifting approaches to the writing of women's histories, focusing primarily on developments after the 1970s. This is not a course which elaborates upon the descriptive content of women's history - what women wore, where they worked, what forms of leisure they engaged in or how they organized themselves politically - although we will dip in and out of certain historical contexts and situations to illustrate a particular debate or controversy. Rather, this is a historiographical course about the increasingly complex manner in which scholars (primarily Anglo-American) have undertaken the task of writing women back into history.

The first section of the module will be concerned with early historical representations of women and the key perspectival developments from women's history through feminist history and on to gender history. Students will find that many issues arising here on the strengths and limitations of these various approaches follow on from the Level 1 module Studies in Gender and History. The remainder of the module will look at a selection of approaches in the contemporary writing of women's history (post 1970s) –black and postcolonial women's histories, lesbian accounts and postmodern perspectives - many of which have prompted productive and controversial areas of debate raising pertinent issues not just in the writing of women's history alone, but history generally.

HIL 204 Fascism in Western Europe
This module analyses the nature of fascism in France, Italy, Germany and Britain. The module concludes with discussion of the critical topics of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. A strong focus of the course is the exploration of fascist ideology, its origins and developments in inter-war Europe.

HIL205 Origins of the British Civil War
This module introduces students to the complex, long-standing debate about the origins of the British Civil War. Students will tackle the various theories of causation and cover a range of long and short-term explanations for the Civil War. This will include an introduction to the work of revisionist historians, particularly in relation to constitutional and parliamentary debates, controversies over religion and scholarship relating to counties, communities and regions.

HIL207 Oral History
The Oral History module is aimed at developing student’s understanding of historical sources and how oral testimonies may be used as a specific methodological approach. Alongside the theoretical debates about the meanings of memory in oral testimonies, students will be required to undertake their own oral interviews. The module will involve talks from oral history professionals and a site visit to a local museum which uses oral testimonies in its displays, enabling students to study oral history in practice.

HIL208 Identity and Meaning in Victorian Culture
This module introduces students to some of the significant debates and social forces in Victorian Britain that surrounded the construction of religious, class-based and national identities during a period of rapid change. The module looks at certain individuals and institutions responsible for producing a variety of literary forms (fiction, poetry, social commentaries, sermons hymns etc.) which in turn reflected particular moral and intellectual values and dominant cultural codes of meaning.

We begin with an overview of the period and an exploration of the relationship between ‘society’ and ‘culture’. The module is then set up around three main themes: ‘religion and secularization’ in which we examine the decline in institutional religious influence, ‘poverty and reform’ which looks at the way in which writers and social commentators defined ‘the poor’ and the strategies that were proposed to improve the situation of the underclass in 19th century Britain and finally ‘ethnicity and national identity’ which looks at selected debates on race and empire and contemporary popular representations of Victorian colonialism.

HIL209 The Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance comprises one of the most significant and splendid episodes in European cultural history. This module surveys major developments in the art, politics, political thought, society, intellectual culture and religion of the period in Italy from approximately 1400 to 1530. Special attention is given to developments in Florence, Venice and Rome and major figures studied include Petrarch, Leonardo Bruni, Machiavelli and Raphael. Besides working with both textual and visual primary sources, students are also introduced to historiographical debates about the term ‘Italian Renaissance’.

HIL214 Intellectuals in History
The twentieth century was the most blood thirsty ever recorded in the course of human history, yet it began with various philosophical and ideological ambitions to create human rights communities that should have ushered in freedoms and liberties, emancipation and empowerment for the citizens of various nation states in Europe and elsewhere. Against this background, the course examines various intellectuals - mainly European - who, in the twentieth century, tried to variously understand the times in which they lived and articulate various 'intellectual' responses to it. Beginning by examining the idea of 'the intellectual'…The intellectuals 'role', 'status', 'power', and so on, it develops via the close reading of some of the key works of some of the major intellectuals of the last 100 years: Oswald Spengler, Ortega Y Gasset, T.S. Eliot, Antonio Gramsci, Julian Benda, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Edward Said, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Ermarth, Richard Rorty, Franz Fanon and Cornel West. By the end of the course it is hoped students will not only understand some of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century, but will be beginning to approach texts and ideas with a certain 'intellectuality' of their own.

HIL217 Approaches to Research
Building on the Level One module ‘Making Histories’, the aim of this module is to introduce students to a wide range of methods and techniques which are used by historians when they undertake research. These include everything from archives, palaeography and the use of primary sources to use of the internet and other electronic technology. Attention is also given to issues concerning presenting research. By the end of the module students are expected to have developed a decent research proposal as a starting-point for their own Level Three dissertations

HIL219 England and France in the Sixteenth Century
The history of England and of continental Europe are usually studied quite separately. This module, on the other hand, sets out to compare and contrast the dramatic experiences of the two countries in a period of fundamental change, as a means to better understanding both of them. Major themes are developments in the monarchy, the impact of the reformation, war and violence, cultural achievements and the role of the nobility and gentry. The module will also explore the nature of contact and interchange between the two countries.

HIL229 Work Placement: Applied History in the workplace
The work placement module aims to provide students with an understanding of how aspects of the past are conserved, catalogued and made use of in museums, libraries and record offices. Each student undertaking the module will be placed with a local museum, library, record office or art gallery and will be required to undertake a specific project related to the work programme of their placement site. This could involve databasing, cataloguing, helping with exhibitions or producing material as required by the work placement representative. The module will culminate in the production of an in-depth report on the work placement experience.

HIL 230 Cool Britannia: a cultural history of Britain from 1945 to the present
This module offers students the opportunity to analyse selected examples of British cultural activity after 1945. The module explores a number of key moments of cultural production such as an ‘The Angry Young Men’; ‘Cold War Fiction’; ‘The Swinging Sixties’ and ‘Thatcherism and Responses to Thatcherism’. The course will illustrate the range and complexity of cultural expression during the period and encourage students to locate examples of British filmic and literary culture within their artistic, political and historical contexts.