History

This course offers a panoramic view of the history of France. While in Bordeaux, students confront the names of historical figures through Bordeaux and French toponymy. This historical background makes it possible to better understand actuality and the press. Learning takes place by encountering historical characters from prehistory, antiquity, the middle ages, the renaissance, modern times, and the contemporary period.

The archives associated with King George III held at Windsor Castle are exceptionally rich and voluminous and in many cases largely unexplored. King’s College London is currently working with the Royal Household to digitize these archives and make them more widely accessible through the Georgian Papers program. This course gives students an extraordinary opportunity to experience this project and learn how scholars in a range of disciplines engage with an archive and help interpret it to both scholarly and wider public audiences. During the course they learn about the history of George’s reign from a range of expert scholars, in preparation for themselves selecting, and then editing and preparing an edition of a document from the archive. Throughout the course students receive training and guidance on how to prepare an edition to a high scholarly standard and have the opportunity to practice these techniques in a group project before embarking on their chosen assignment.

This course examines the history of European cultures, with a special focus on Spain, from pre-history to the present day. The second half of the course focuses on the Mediterranean world after Islamic expansion in North Africa, the conquest of Spain, and the domination of much of the Mediterranean.

The course offers a wide-ranging survey of Scandinavian history and culture (literature, film, and the visual arts), with a focus on the Viking Age, the later Middle Ages and the Nordic Enlightenment. Students learn about the individuality of the Scandinavian nations, of their shared heritage, and their connections with Europe as a whole in respect of the periods studied. No language knowledge is involved and all texts are dealt with in translation. When available, this course can be taken together with Scandinavian Civilisation B (when available) to form a 40 credit block, ideal for outside subjects and full-year visiting students.