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Pasts and Presents: Cultures of History in Britain, c. 1600-1900

Module description

The past and the stories we tell about it have an enduring interest well beyond the academic world. The same was true in the past. Starting with the Renaissance, both popular and scholarly interest in the past began to grow. But have notions of ‘historical truth’ changed over time?  And when did “popular” history really begin? This module addresses these questions by exploring the many ways that people in the past related to the past in Britain from c. 1600 to 1900. We will analyse how historical production was influenced by a variety of intellectual and cultural currents in religion, philosophy, science, art, literature, architecture, and political ideas. We will consider classical inheritances, as well as the contemporary concerns that influenced historical writing throughout the period.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to be a thoroughly interdisciplinary exploration of the history of history and historical culture, touching on aspects of cultural and intellectual history, literature (including novels, drama, and poetry), art, and architecture. It aims to provide an immersive introduction to the cultural/intellectual history of Britain in the period c. 1600-1900, and to contemporary debates around historical and moral truth, fictionalisation, and the formation of “spheres of knowledge” into disciplines. It also aims to provide you with a firm foundation in the theoretical literature around the philosophy of history and the history of ideas in Britain. Throughout, you will have the opportunity to engage with a wide variety of source material and approaches, and to engage with a range of theoretical approaches and concepts, both in seminars and in your own independent study. As an interdisciplinary module, you will also be encouraged to reflect on your own disciplinary practice and to consider how these practices developed during the period under discussion.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the various ways in which people in Britain related to the past, 1600-1900, and of the intellectual and cultural contexts of historical production in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.
• 2. Critically engage with relevant scholarship in the history of history, the history of ideas, philosophy of history, etc.
• 3. Demonstrate willingness and ability to identify and engage with conceptual and philosophical problems inherent in historical production across time.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Formulate appropriate questions relating to a body of source material and utilise that material to answer those questions
• 5. With minimum guidance, develop and sustain historical arguments in a variety of literary forms, using appropriate terminology
• 6. Display a command of comparative perspectives
• 7. Analyse at a close and sophisticated level original sources and assess their reliability as historical evidence
• 8. Evaluate critically the reasoning of discourses current in the period under study

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 9. Combine independent, autonomous study with the ability to work collaboratively
• 10. Set tasks independently and solve problems, formulating appropriate questions and marshalling relevant evidence to answer them
• 11. With minimum guidance, digest, select and synthesise evidence and arguments to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument

Syllabus plan

The lectures will provide a spine of ideas and information. These will form a basis upon which you can build your own interpretations and explore concepts and issues further in the seminars. The seminar work will comprise (1) discussions of particular topics and sources relating to the subject matter of the module and (2) group presentations.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

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

Basic reading:

• R.G. Collingwood, The idea of history (1946 and subsequent editions)
• J.C.D. Clark, English society, 1688-1832: ideology, social structure and political practice during the Ancien Regime (1985)
• F. O’Gorman, The long eighteenth century: British political and social history, 1688-1832 (1997)
• B. Hilton, Mad, bad ,dangerous people?: England 1783-1846 (2006)
• R. Porter, Enlightenment Britain and the creation of the modern world (2000)
• S. Collini, R. Whatmore, B Young (eds.), History, religion, and culture: British intellectual history, 1750-1950 (2000)
• J.W. Burrow, The Crisis of Reason: European thought, 1848-1914 (2002)
• C. Kidd, Subverting Scotland’s Past: Scottish Whig historians and the creation of British identity (1993)
• J. Burrow, A history of histories (2007) [for a very general (entertaining) introduction; not much on Britain specifically]
• T. Blanning, The romantic revolution: a history (2011)
• D.R. Kelley, Faces of history: historical inquiry from Herodotus to Herder (1998)
• Grafton, What was history?: The art of history in early modern Europe (2007)
• T.D. Kendrick, British antiquity (1950)
• D.R. Woolf, The social circulation of the past: English historical culture 1500-1730 (2003)
• D.R. Woolf, The idea of history in early Stuart England (1990)
• Kidd, British identities before nationalism (1999)
• H.T. Roper, Enlightenment and history (2010)
• M. Phillips, On Historical Distance (2013)M. Phillips, Society and sentiment: genres of historical writing, 1740-1820 (2000)
• Looser, British women writers and the writing of history, 1670-1820 (2000)K. O’Brien, Women and Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Britain (2009)R. Sweet, Antiquaries: the discovery of the past in eighteenth-century Britain (2004)
• S. Smiles, The image of antiquity: ancient Britain and the Romantic imagination (1994)
• Forbes, The liberal Anglican idea of history (1952)
• J. Burrow, A liberal descent: Victorian historians and the English past (1981)
• C. Delheim, Face of the past: the preservation of the medieval inheritance in Victorian England (1982)
• C.A. Simmons, Reversing the conquest: history and myth in nineteenth-century British literature (1990)
• R. Ashton, The German idea: four English writers and the reception of German thought, 1800-1860 (1980)A.D. Culler, The Victorian mirror of history (1985)
• Hesketh, The science of history in Victorian Britain (2011)
• Swenson, The rise of heritage: preserving the past in France, Germany and England, 1789-1914 (2013)
• A., Rigney, Imperfect histories: the elusive past and the legacy of romantic historicism (2001)
• R. Strong, And when did you last see your father?: The Victorian painter and British history (1978)
• Melman, The culture of history: English uses of the past, 1800- 1953 (2006)
• P. Mandler, History and national life (2002)

Key words search

Britain, seventeenth century, eighteenth century, nineteenth century, historiography, history of ideas, literature, identities