History

This course examines the way that foods have been exchanged across the world, and the tensions between local and globalizing forces in shaping the way we eat over the last 500 years. Over the semester, we will move from the medieval spice trade to sugar and slavery in the Atlantic world, and from colonial New Zealand's role as Britain's farm to the global influence of McDonald's and fast food in the 20th century. Through the examination of important food staples, this course introduces students to food, commodities, and material culture as approaches to studying local, regional and global history from the early modern period until the twentieth century. During the course, we will reflect on why we each eat the way we do, and why food is such a powerful tool to understand and communicate cultural and economic change across time. 

Celtic languages are presently spoken in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, on the Isle of Man, in Cornwall and in Brittany, as well as in a small number of diasporic communities. This course explores the emergence of these Celtic speech communities into the historical record in the Middle Ages, the social, political and cultural forces which have shaped their development, and their current prospects for survival. The impact of the development of central state authorities, the protestant Reformation, wider British and French politics, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, the emergence of the modern nation-state, contemporary minority discourses will be considered. Literary and other sources in the various Celtic languages (in translation) will be used to explore these themes. While the focus will be sociolinguistic and literary, linguistic characteristics of the languages will be referred to from time to time.

Students explore how women influenced and were influenced by the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, Decolonization, leftist movements in the 1960s, revolutions, authoritarian regimes and struggles related to gender, racial and LGBTQ+ equality. Through broad global, regional, and comparative analysis in lectures and in-depth historical study of key women, groups, movements or institutions, students explore different methodologies for examining history in the 20th and 21st century. The course’s geographical focus is the Americas, including the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, though there are also opportunities to explore comparisons and contrasts with other parts of the world including Britain, Europe, and Asia.

This course covers Ancient Israel from its cradle to the beginning of the common era, ending with Qumran. It covers the theories about the origins of Israel, including the exodus from Egypt, against the socio-political background of Ancient Israel with due attention to historiography. The succession and successes of various royals are covered, as well as the activity of the prophets in a comparative perspective. Cultic practices throughout the period are discussed.

This course investigates Roman politics through the lens of classical political theory, applying ideas about liberty, citizenship, equality, and form of government to the real political practices of the Romans of the first century BC. The course commences with a survey of the everyday political environment of first-century Rome, which provides the context for an in-depth analysis of republican ideology. The course then explores the political thought of influential ancient authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero, before examining the ways in which the image of the Roman Republic and its associated political ideology have been constructed and applied in political theory across the centuries, tracing their metamorphosis in the writings of Machiavelli, 17th-century English republicans, the defenders of the American constitution, and the French Enlightenment.

This course provides an introduction to Scotland's long history as an independent kingdom between the 10th and the early 18th century. It examines the land and people as a way of considering broad themes in a specific and immediate setting. The central theme is Scotland's development as a European state and society through the medieval and early modern periods and the parallel processes which witnessed the development of a sense of Scottish nationhood. Issues of cultural expression and change, and of religious reform and conflict provide strands for discussion which stress the experience of this land in its wider context. The course places particular emphasis on the use of museum collections and built heritage as evidence for the unique history of this land.

This course explores the key aspects of the rise of Europe: concentrating on its environmental resources, aspects of power including rulership, community formation (including gender as a constituent of social relations), its belief and thought and its encounters with surrounding religions and cultures.

This course is about political, social, cultural, and economic change in the Benelux-countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) from the inter-war period to the present. Among the themes covered are the crisis of democracy in the 1930s; collaboration, resistance and accommodation during the German occupation of World War II; decolonization; Dutch, Belgian, and Luxembourgian post-war politics; the Cold War and European integration; development of the modern welfare state; cultural revolution and new social movements in the 1960s; linguistic and inter-communal tensions and federalization of Belgium; immigration, the polder-model, the "crisis of multiculturalism," and the recent rise of populism in the Netherlands.

This course examines Pacific Studies and the worlds of Te Moana-nui-ā-Kiwa (The Pacific). Through the study of taonga or cultural treasures drawn from specific cultures and societies, insights into Indigenous Pacific knowledges and practices are developed. Spanning deep history and the contemporary moment, this course provides a critical understanding of change in the Pacific over time and space.

With systematic teaching, we will help the students to learn the basic changing clues and major issues of 1200 years between Sui Dynasty in ancient China and Opium War, as well as the necessary historical knowledge of politic, economic, institution, culture, nationality and other aspects of this period; moreover to help the students to learn the basic method of historical research, the important academic works, famous experts and the latest academic trends; to train their professional awareness, and to lay the foundation for further study of the various dynastic histories and history of particular subjects, as well as the research and practice of the fields. By a variety of interactive forms of lecture, assignment and discussion, to develop students` humanistic spirits and inventiveness.