History

This module is for undergraduate students to study abroad in their second year, Semester 2 (only for courses that offer this option). With this module, you can spend a semester at one of the University’s approved partner institutions worldwide – from Europe to the Americas, Asia Australia or Canada.  

Study Abroad plays an important role in the University's commitment to an engaging, challenging, and thriving learning culture. It offers opportunities to experience other academic cultures and foster intellectual maturity while enhancing co-curricular skills and students' long-term employability. 

Study abroad for credit is permitted on existing university-approved courses only. Students are awarded credits and grades at the partner institution, which are converted into Sheffield Hallam credits and grades on return and included in the Sheffield Hallam degree classification. 

Please check and refer to the webpage How study abroad works. You must submit a Learning Agreement outlining the modules you will be taking at the partner institution. The Learning Agreement will be signed off by your academic tutor to ensure that the Learning broadly covers the Learning Outcomes set out in your course curriculum during your study abroad.

 ·        to provide a critical understanding of the principal political and social changes which have affected America since 1968

·        to examine the interaction between social change and the main political parties' beliefs, programmes, and support

·        to develop an ability to interpret the impact of political and social change in an historical way while taking critical account of evidence and concepts from other disciplines

·        to assess critically the extent to which political and social changes have restructured the U.S.A. since 1968  

INDICATIVE CONTENT

The module begins with the proposition that 1968 marked a significant watershed in recent American history with a shift from a political culture of rising liberal expectations and radical pressure to an increasingly conservative political order.

The following topics in political history are indicative of what will be explored:

·        the political crisis of 1968

·        Nixon as political manager or failed conservative

·        Reaganism

·        Clinton and the limitations of presidential power

·        the Democratic party since 1968: composition and beliefs

·        Republicanism since 1994

The following topics in social history are indicative of what will be explored:

·        economic and social change since 1968

·        restructuring America since 1968

·        race, region and gender since 1968

·        Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Great Debate (2004)

·        Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000)

·        income, wealth and class

Individual topics are subject to modification or alteration in the light of published research and student preferences.

This module traces the origins of Australian settlement in the open air penitentiary of the penal system and considers the imperatives towards free settlement from 1820 onwards. It interprets pre-literate, non-European culture in Australia and explores the validity of a pre-settlement history of the continent. It examines the relationship between White European and Black indigenous cultures pre and post-Federation and analyses different forms of Aboriginal resistance. The rationale behind the module is to place recent debates about Australia’s link with the Crown and an Australian head of state in context. It is tied to cultural and political debates about ‘Australianness’ and invites students to test their prevailing assumptions about the continent and its historical relationship with Britain. 

Indicative content

Topics may include:

• The link between the history of crime and disorder in Britain with debates about empire and colonisation 
• the interactions between White settler society and indigenous communities in the Australian colonies
• the broader context of relations between Britain and Australia in an imperial framework.
• “White Australia” legislation and Australian political hostility to integration with Asia
• the diverse nature of the migrant experience and the national culture it created in Australia.

This module provides the opportunity to study a particular topic and period of British history in-depth – Chartism, the mass movement for democratic and social rights which peaked in the late 1830s and 1840s. The module will explore the origins, course and development of Chartism, and in so doing will recreate the lived experience of Chartist activists and the working-class communities that they mobilized. It will also focus on the ideology, strategy and tactics of the movement.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Each week the module will focus on a different aspect of Chartism, which will include Chartist ideology, strategy and tactics, leadership, the rank and file, Chartist culture including the class, gender, religious, national and international dimensions of the movement.

The module aims to provide a specialised, theoretical and empirical, knowledge of aspects of a history of interaction between Africans and Germans and the consequences of this interaction. It introduces aspects of post-colonial theory, constructions of blackness and race and debates about the nature of German colonialism. The module also explores the challenges faced by African-Germans and African migrants, past and present, in creating a place for themselves in German society as well as how the presence of an African Diaspora in Germany has called into question constructions of Germanness.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

The first five weeks of the module focus on colonial fantasies and the establishment and nature of Germany's overseas Empire           

• European constructions of Otherness
• The establishment and nature of German Colonial rule
• Settler colonialism and racial hierarchies
• Colonial violence and genocide
• The end of Empire

Topics covered in the second half of the module focus on the interaction of Germans and Africans in Europe

• The beginnings of an African community in Germany
• Survival Strategies during the Weimar Republic
• Jazz and French colonial troops on the Rhine
• The Black Diaspora and Nazi Germany
• Occupation children and constructions of Germanness post-1945
• The Black German movement of the 1980s
• Hip Hop and expressions of identity in reunified Germany 

Module summary

Language study will develop your self-confidence, and intercultural skills. It will give you new opportunities for learning and working across cultures. Language skills are highly sought after by employers and give you a real advantage in whatever you hope to do in the future.

You will study your chosen language at the appropriate level based on your existing language ability – please refer to the individual module descriptors for each language and level for further details on the teaching and assessment.

The module aims to provide knowledge and understanding of the historical relationship between Britain and South Asia. It will cover the whole period of British colonial rule over the Indian sub-continent: from the beginnings of East India Company control in 1765, through the period of Crown Rule following the Rebellion of 1857-8, to the moment of Independence and Partition in 1947. The module will explore the political, economic, social and cultural aspects of this history, and analysise a wide range of primary source material and critical engagement with scholarly debates in this contentious area of scholarship.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics may include:

• Mughal Empire to East Indian Company rule
• The Indian Rebellion and the imposition of Crown rule
• The rise of Indian nationalism
• Communalism and the formation of the Muslim League
• Gandhi and the independence movement
• Anglo-Indian society
• Contentious traditions: Indian women, religion and reform
• The economy
• Subaltern Studies and peasant resistance
• The empire at home: Anglo-Indians and Indians in Britain
• Independence and partition 

The aim of this module is to examine how Britain developed a strategy of industrial warfare during the Great War, and the interaction between the military and domestic fronts.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Section A: The British Way in Warfare

• War Preparedness and Political Economy in Edwardian Britain.
• The Most Decisive Battle in World History: the Battle of the Marne and the Evolution of Trench Warfare.
• Britain’s Traditional Method of Warfare: Business as Usual

Section B: Industrial Warfare and the Somme

• The rise of Industrial Warfare and the Dual Army: Lloyd George and the Ministry of Munitions.
• Military and Economic Planning for the Somme.
• The industrial Battlefield: the Battle of the Somme and its Aftermath.

Section C: From Crisis to Victory.

• Oh What a Costly War: Paying for the War.
• A Year of Crisis: Managing the War Economy in 1917.
• Business, Labour, and the State, 1917-1918.
• Women and the War Economy, 1916-1918.
• Industrial Warfare in 1918: From the jaws of Defeat to Victory.
• Armistice and Peace.

This module will assess the social and cultural impact of the profound economic and technological changes which European societies were undergoing in the late 19th and early 20th c. The focus will be on public health and medicine because of the wide ranging effects of the medical revolution which started in the 1860s, of the increased social status and authority of physicians, and of the central role of medicine in Europeans' lives and in social and political debates at the time. Many issues came to be examined and analysed through a medical prism, from race and migration to town planning. Contemporaries were also acutely aware of, and sometimes critical of, the increased social pressure of modern life and attributed many ailments to the spread of new technologies or the environmental impact of industrialisation. Public health policies being closely linked to welfare issues, the second theme to be explored in this module will be the growing state intervention in welfare issues, through the example of disability.

The aim of this module is to explore and critique the historical construction of 'northern' English regional identities and their place in the nation’s imagination. It will explore a number of key themes in the social, cultural, political and economic history of the region such as: the North/South divide; industry, industrial decline and regeneration; the family, community and gender roles; popular culture and leisure; language, dialect and performance; heritage, museums and community history. The module will provide knowledge and skills in various public history formats, including digital story-telling and oral history.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics may include:

• the North/South Divide
• Industry, industrial decline and regeneration
• Rural life and representations of the countryside
• Gender, the family and northern identity
• Popular culture, leisure and regional identity
• Language, dialect and performance
• Representations of ‘the North’ as a frontier region and England’s ‘other’
• Representing ‘the north’ in film and television
• Public History and northern regional identities
• Oral history and digital story-telling

This module aims to provide a multi-layered understanding of South Africa’s history in the ‘long’ twentieth century. It examines a wide range of literatures and topics to explore key shifts in South African politics, economy and society, including: the impacts of the discovery of mass gold deposits in 1886; the rise of the migrant labour system; the development of segregationist policy; the apartheid project; nationalism and the rise of mass resistance to apartheid; the transition to democracy, and the inheritances and challenges faced by the new democracy. The module will pay particular attention to the history of apartheid and the impacts of rapid social change upon the development of this system of white supremacy and resistance to it.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics may include:

• The gold mining economy
• The South African war
• The 1913 and 1936 Land Acts and the makings of segregation
• Urbanisation and social change
• The rise of Afrikaner and African nationalisms
• The Apartheid project
• From protest to challenge- the rise of mass resistance and the turn to armed struggle
• State Repression: mass arrests, forced removals and the making of the Bantustans
• Exile politics and the International Anti-Apartheid Movement
• Black consciousness and the Soweto uprising
• The States of Emergency, 1985-1986
• The transition years: negotiated settlement
• The Rainbow Nation: Mandela’s presidency
• Mbeki’s presidency and the ‘African renaissance’
• The Zuma years: new political fissures, new social challenges
• Nelson Mandela: critical biography

This module aims to provide a specialised knowledge and understanding of developments in German history between 1933 and 1961. It uses different approaches (political, social and cultural) to build up a complex picture of the nature of the Nazi dictatorship and its aftermath, including its legacy for the two German states (the FRG and the GDR) from 1949 to the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. A key feature will be an investigation of ordinary Germans’ responses to Nazi policies and to policies of reconstruction, de-Nazification and restitution after 1945. Continuities and shifts in popular attitudes, lifestyles and expectations between the 1930s and the 1950s will also be explored. Finally, the module aims to increase confidence in the handling of primary evidence and in the critical evaluation of historical debate and controversy.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics may include:

• Nazi Propaganda and its impact
• Mass Organisations in the Third Reich
• Terror and Concentration Camps
• Race and Population Policies
• Anti-Semitism and ‘ordinary’ Germans
• Conformity, opposition and resistance in the Third Reich
• Gender, war and comradeship in the Third Reich
• Family and private life in the transition from war to defeat and military occupation
• De-Nazification and War Crimes Trials, 1945-1949
• The two German states from birth to sovereignty, 1949-1955
• Gender, Remasculinisation and society in the 1950s
• Cold War Propaganda and the Nazi Past in the Two Germanys, 1949-1961