Power Elites: Ruling Groups across Space and Time
| Module title | Power Elites: Ruling Groups across Space and Time |
|---|---|
| Module code | HIH3618 |
| Academic year | 2019/0 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | Professor Henry French (Convenor) Dr Matt Rendle (Lecturer) Dr Jennifer Farrell (Lecturer) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 36 |
|---|
Module description
In an age of democracy, we still complain that those in power have similar social backgrounds, education and experience, and we talk about the emergence of ‘oligarchs’ in different parts of the world. How does this situation compare with earlier periods of history, when more defined ‘aristocracies’ claimed the right to rule? Starting in the early Medieval period and extending to the twentieth century, this module compares power elites across a range of settings, extending from Medieval Spain to the Russian Revolution, or the Norman Conquest to the Welfare State.
It will encourage you to think comparatively across time-periods and countries about the following subject areas:
- Where do elites come from?
- What kinds of formal privileges, powers and rights sustained and enforced elite power, and how did these change over time? How far did their formal privileges match their actual sources of wealth and status, and how did they police membership of the group?
- How did elites justify their powers, and what stories did they tell about their ancestry and status? How did religious beliefs and political ideologies sustain their power?
- What was the role of gender in shaping elite identities, in educating and authorising male authority, and in enabling women to wield power in a ‘man’s world’?
- How did elites project their power through art, architecture, literature, patronage, luxuries, clothes and food?
- How did they take advantage of political change, such as the growth of empires, or the spread of representative politics?
- How did elites respond to challenges to power, through revolts, rebellions and revolutions? Did they really decline or disappear in the twentieth century?
Module aims - intentions of the module
This module is designed to enhance your understanding of recurring themes in the history of power elites and aristocracies over a time scale extending a time scale extending from the early medieval period to the 20th century. It will be taught by two or three different tutors, and exact chronological and thematic focus will depend on which tutors are teaching the module in any given year. By close specialist evaluation of key topics such as elite identity, gender and elite status, justifications for elite power, the projection of cultural authority, and questions of aristocratic decline, in settings as various as Medieval Spain, Early Modern England, Nineteenth-Century Europe and Twentieth-Century Russia students will trace key developments in the subject, and think about these comparatively across time and space. The module will also introduce students to the approaches of different disciplines, such as sociology and art history, and to a variety of different historical source materials, such as autobiographies, letters, diaries, petitions, portraiture, architecture, funeral monuments and novels. By using a combination of tutor-led seminars and lectures, student-led seminars and independent study, the module will enable students to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of taking a comparative approach to the study of power elites and aristocracies. In this way students will learn to draw thematic comparisons between material from different sources, show awareness of contrasting approaches to research, and demonstrate an enhanced understanding of some of the philosophical questions arising from research into large historical themes. They will also learn to present some of these complex issues to the rest of the class by leading a seminar in the second half of the course.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Analyse developments in the history of power elites and aristocracies and compare their relationship to other phenomena such as law, education, religion, political ideology, rebellion and artistic culture across a variety of historical time-periods and contexts
- 2. Compare and explain key historiographical developments in the history of power elites and aristocracies across different societies and periods, and relate them to an overall conception of the subject
- 3. Evaluate carefully and critically the approaches that historians and scholars working in other disciplines have taken to understanding the bases of elite wealth, power and social/cultural authority, the processes by which these were reproduced through time within systems of politics, religion, education, gender and culture, and challenged by rebellions, representative politics, dictatorship and egalitarian social policies
- 4. Define suitable research topics for independent study/student-led seminars in the history of power elites and aristocracies, evaluating different and complex types of historical source and historiography
- 5. Demonstrate the possibilities and limitations of comparative methodological approaches in historical research more generally
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 6. Analyse the key developments in complex and unfamiliar political, social, cultural or intellectual environments
- 7. Identify and deploy correct terminology in a comprehensible manner; use primary sources in a professional manner; present work in the format expected of historians, including footnoting and bibliographical references
- 8. Assess critically different approaches to history in a contested area
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 9. Work both in a team and independently
- 10. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
- 11. As a team, understand how to lead a group discussion of a historical topic
Syllabus plan
Term 1
Five sessions covering methodological and conceptual issues relating to the following themes:
- How can we define power elites in past societies? What were the bases of their power/wealth & status?
- How far did elites’ circumstances match the rhetoric of their power? How did they police their membership, or assimilate new/rival elites?
- How did elites justify their power, in terms of ideologies or religious values? How did they use these to project or soften their authority?
- How did elites respond to political challenges from popular rebellions, political reform movements, ideological opponents and the growth of totalitarian or egalitarian systems of government?
- How did elites project their social and cultural power as patrons of art, literature, architecture, and through their ‘lifestyles’ (material culture, clothes and food)? What messages were they transmitting by these means?
Each session will be taught through one 2-hour seminar and one 1-hour lecture. The lectures will focus on worked examples or case studies from the tutor’s own area of specialism and suggest questions and themes which could be explored comparatively by you. The seminars will explore particular issues in more depth, through case studies or discussion of particular sources and historiographical debates. They will also lay the foundations for the student-led seminars in the second half of the course. Topics covered will vary according to tutor availability but may include:
- Legal privileges and status
- Sources of wealth, status and power – acceptable and unacceptable
- Elites and political power – centres and peripheries, relations with monarchy/representative politics/dictatorship
- Elites, religion and power – how did elites express their power through religion?
- Elites, political ideology and power – changing understandings of the doctrine of political ‘aristocracy’
- ‘Aristocratic decline’ or re-invention?
Term 2
Five 2-hour seminars led by groups of 2 or 3 students on topics chosen from a menu offered by tutors. Topics will vary according to tutor availability and student choice but may include:
- Lineage, blood and ancestor stories/myths
- Elites and gender – women, wealth and power; masculinity and notions of authority
- Challenges to power – revolts, rebellions and revolutions
- Elite identities and education – formative experiences across time and space
- Social projection of power – art, literature, architecture, the court, patronage, luxury, clothing, food
These will involve students giving comparative presentations based on a series of primary source case studies, and set-up for student-led seminars.
Alongside these, there will be five 1-hour lectures, as for Term 1 above.
Concluding session: discussion of overarching issues and comparative points.
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 33 | 267 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 11 | 11 x 1 hour lectures to run on alternate weeks over both terms |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 12 | 6 x 2 hour tutor-led seminars |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 10 | 5 x 2 hour seminars. Each led by a group of 2 or 3 students. Topics should be chosen from a menu of subjects agreed in advance by tutors. While tutors give guidance and a basic reading list, you are responsible for designing seminar activities and identifying further reading materials |
| Guided independent study | 267 | You prepare for seminars, essay, final report and exam through reading and research; you also work in groups to lead seminars based on projects that have been developed |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay plan | 500 words | 1-8, 10 | Oral and written feedback |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 70 | 30 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | 30 | 3000 words | 1-8, 10 | Oral and written feedback |
| Student-led seminar [comprising: leading a student-led seminar (36%) and attending all student-led seminars (4%)] | 40 | 2 hours | 1-11 | Oral and written feedback |
| Takeaway examination | 30 | 3000 words | 1-8, 10 | Oral and written feedback |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | Essay | 1-8, 10 | Referral/Deferral period |
| Student-led seminar [comprising: leading a student-led seminar (36%) and attending all student-led seminars (4%)] | 1500 words (written by student individually) describing and reflecting on the proposed seminar 1-8, 10activities and materials equating to one persons contribution (c. 45 minutes), plus proposed handout or powerpoint from seminar (not more than 2 sides of A4) and seminar reading list (not more than 1 side of A4) | 1-11 | Referral/Deferral period |
| Takeaway examination | Takeaway examination | 1-8, 10 | Referral/Deferral period |
Re-assessment notes
The re-assessment consists of a 3,000 word essay and 3,000 word take-away exam, as in the original assessment, but replaces leading and participating in student-led seminars with a written seminar plan and reading list that corresponds to one student’s contribution to such a seminar. The plan should outline how the seminar is to be structured and organised as well as detailing the material to be used. This will enable a reader to gain a sense of what the student intended to do in the seminar, the rationale for this activity, and when this activity / discussion would take place.
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
- Becker, S. Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985).
- Black, J. The British and the Grand Tour (London: Croom Helm, 1985).
- Cannadine, David. The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
- Cavender, M. Nests of the Gentry: Family, Estate, and Local Loyalties in Provincial Russia (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007).
- Crouch, David. The image of aristocracy in Britain 1000-1300 (London: Routledge, 1992).
- Crouch, David. The Birth of Nobility: constructing aristocracy in England and France, 900-1300 (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2005).
- Crouch, David. The English aristocracy, 1070-1272 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).
- Dewald, J. The European Nobility 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- Girouard, M. Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978).
- Heal, Felicity, and Clive Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500-1700 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994).
- Lieven, D. The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815-1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992).
- Lukowski, Jerzy. The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
- Marrese, M. A Woman’s Kingdom: Noblewomen and the Control of Property in Russia, 1700-1861 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002).
- Mayer, A. The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (London: Pantheon Books, 1981).
- Powis, Jonathan. Aristocracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).
- Rendle, M. Defenders of the Motherland: The Tsarist Elite in Revolutionary Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Reuter, Timothy, ed., The medieval nobility: studies on the ruling classes of France and Germany from the sixth to the twelfth century (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, 1979).
- Roosevelt, P. Life on the Russian Country Estate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
- Rosenthal, Joel T. Nobles and the noble life, 1295-1500 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1976).
- Scott, H. M. (ed.) The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 2 vols (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995).
- Stone L., & J.C.F. Stone, An Open Elite? England 1540-1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
- Suleiman, Ezra. Elites in French Society. The Politics of Survival (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
- Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman’s daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 05/12/12 |
| Last revision date | 13/12/2018 |
