Elites
| Module title | Elites |
|---|---|
| Module code | HIH3331 |
| Academic year | 2025/6 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | Professor Henry French (Lecturer) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 10 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 32 |
|---|
Module description
Thomas Piketty’s controversial book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014) argued that Elites have returned with a vengeance in the modern world. Since 1970, he argues that the super-rich (the ‘1 per cent’) have captured much of the world’s growth, and are now consolidating their economic, social and political power to become a new, entrenched elite. However, Piketty observes this is not a new phenomenon. Instead, it is a return to a pre-industrial distribution of wealth, status and power, when titular elites (primarily land-owning nobles) inherited fortunes that were 50-times larger than a person could earn in a single lifetime. On this module you will explore the concept of elites in the European past from the 9th to the 20th centuries, by examining how historians and sociologists have defined elites and elite societies, how elite identities were formed and perpetuated, the tense relationships between elites and royal governments, how elites colonised institutions (such as the church, schools, universities or the military), but also derived power from them, and how political revolutions and economic transformations have undermined traditional elites, but also created new ones. The concept of reemergent elites challenges ideas that political and economic ‘modernisation’ inevitably reduces inequalities of wealth, status, power, and forces us to think differently about how and why such disparities persist.
Module aims - intentions of the module
This ‘Concepts’ module requires you to engage with historical ideas and theories relating to Elites that are applicable across time and space. You will be encouraged to think beyond the detail of your Special Subjects and Dissertations, using a range of illustrative case studies to examine broader ideas. You will have to consider how ideas and concepts about Elites vary, develop, or manifest consistently in different time periods and places, and why they are constructed as they are. What can this tell us about past peoples and societies, and what are the implications for the world in which we now live?
All History ‘Concepts’ modules are partly project-based, requiring you to take the initiative. In the first half of term, a team of tutors will introduce themes, concepts, and ideas, setting you up for the rest of the module. The second half of term is student-led: you will work in groups to develop your understanding of Elites and lead a seminar to teach fellow students more about Elites through a series of case-studies.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Analyse and explain key developments in the histories of Elites across different historical time-periods and geographical regions
- 2. Evaluate carefully and critically the approaches that historians and scholars working in other disciplines have taken to the concept of Elites
- 3. Define suitable research topics for independent study/student-led seminars on the history of Elites
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 4. Analyse the key developments in complex and unfamiliar political, social, cultural or intellectual environments
- 5. Evaluate different and complex types of historical source and historiography.
- 6. Present work in the format expected of historians, including footnoting and bibliographical references.
- 7. Identify and deploy correct terminology in a comprehensible and sophisticated manner
- 8. Evaluate 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 in order to prepare and lead a seminar
- 10. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.
Syllabus plan
The module will examine how can we define power elites in past societies, and ask what were the bases of their power/wealth & status? We will review the ways that elites justified their power, in terms of ideologies or religious values, and analyse how they used these values to project or soften their authority? This can include their projection of social and cultural power as patrons of art, literature, architecture, and through their ‘lifestyles’ (material culture, clothes and food). We will also explore how far elites’ circumstances matched the rhetoric of their power, how they policed their membership, or assimilate new/rival elites? It will consider the role of women within elite networks, particularly families, and assess their power and autonomy. The module will also focus on the response of elites to political challenges from popular rebellions, political reform movements, ideological opponents and the growth of totalitarian or egalitarian systems of government?
Topics covered will vary according to tutor availability but may include:
- Creating & sustaining elites - The role of ancestry, legal privileges and status
- Elites, religion and power – how did elites express their power through religion?
- Elites and Gender – Gendered power and forms of authority
- Elites and the challenge of popular rebellion – Elites versus peasants, elites versus ‘the people’
- Elites and government power - centres and peripheries, relations with monarchy/representative politics/dictatorship‘
- Aristocratic decline’ or re-invention?
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | 273 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 9 | 9 x 1-hour workshops |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 2 | 2 x 1-hour lectures |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 16 | Seminars (tutor-led = 5x2 hours; student-led = 6x1 hour) |
| Guided independent study | 273 | Reading and preparation for seminars, workshops, and assessment |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seminar plan and schedule of work | 1000 words | 1-9 | Oral |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student-led seminar, including supporting materials | 45 | 1 hour | 1-9 | Written |
| Written assignment | 45 | 3000 words | 1, 2, 4-8, 10 | Written |
| Attendance at student-led seminars and support workshops | 5 | Attendance at student-led seminars and support workshops | 9 | N/A |
| Full completion of ELE log | 5 | Full completion of ELE log | 9 | N/A |
| 0 | ||||
| 0 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student-led seminar, including supporting materials | 5-minute recorded introduction to the topic; 10-minute recording explaining supporting materials and intentions for their use in a seminar; supporting materials | 1-9 | Referral/Deferral Period |
| Written assignment (3000 words) | Written assignment (3000 words) | 1,2,4-8,10 | Referral/Deferral Period |
Re-assessment notes
The re-assessment consists of a 3000-word Written Assignment, as in the original assessment, but replaces leading a student-led seminar with recordings and supporting materials that correspond to one student’s contribution to such a seminar. The introduction should outline the student’s understanding of the topic; the longer recording should explain how the seminar would be structured and organised, as well as detailing the material to be used. This will enable the marker to gain a sense of what the student’s understanding of their concept and its specific application in the seminar, what the student intended to do in the seminar, and the rationale for this activity, as well as enabling them to assess the student’s oral seminar-leading skills.
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
Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (New Haven, 2014)
David Crouch, The Birth of Nobility: constructing aristocracy in England and France, 900-1300 (Harlow, 2005)
Joel T Rosenthal, Nobles and the noble life, 1295-1500 (London, 1976)
H. M. Scott (ed.) The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 2 vols (London, 1995)
J. Dewald, The European Nobility 1400-1800 (Cambridge, 1996).
Ezra Suleiman, Elites in French Society. The Politics of Survival (Princeton, 1978)
L. Stone & J.C.F. Stone, An Open Elite? England 1540-1880 (Oxford, 1986).
David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, 1990)
D. Lieven, The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815-1914 (Basingstoke, 1992)
M. Marrese, A Woman’s Kingdom: Noblewomen and the Control of Property in Russia, 1700-1861 (Ithaca, 2002)
A. Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (London, 1981)
M. Rendle, Defenders of the Motherland: The Tsarist Elite in Revolutionary Russia (Oxford, 2010)
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | Yes |
| Last revision date | 27/08/2024 |
