History

In Ireland, as internationally, the period from 1500 to 1800 was characterized by major political, economic, and social change. Recently, historians have placed increasing emphasis on the impact of early modern environmental and demographic transformation at a time of sustained political upheaval and social reorganization. In the three centuries between 1500 and 1800, Ireland was subject to a complex process of evolution from an essentially rural island controlled by diverse Gaelic and Anglo-Norman lordships to an island dominated politically by a colonial elite who effectively differed from the native population in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, and financial status. This course examines the transformation of Ireland in the period 1500 to 1800 from the perspective of migration and environmental change. In particular, the course considers how changes in demography, land ownership, land management, climate change, urbanization, and commerce significantly reconfigured Ireland’s landscape and environment.

This course examines a controversial issue: the history of slavery in France and the United States from the 17th to 21st centuries. It first focuses on the history of two cities at the heart of triangular trade, Bordeaux and Charleston, and the way in which their elites thought and translated into their lifestyles, in their urban spaces and, today, in their museums, this historical fact over time. The course then considers how the American and French slaves, unwilling actors in the history of slavery, for their part, thought and translated their history, but also their emotions, in particular through writing. The autobiographies published between the 18th century and the 19th century are an appreciable complement for the researcher even if they raise the question of the subjectivity of their authors and their status as sources. Finally, the course questions the way in which French and American literature, including that dedicated to youth, thinks about and translates the history of slavery through specific examples. The publication of historical novels relating to these lively questions having always been consciously accompanied by civic and moral objectives and the formative function of literature for youth being undeniable, the course investigates if French and American publications think and translate in the same way this part of our history and, above all, whether they transmit the same values. 

The course introduces students to economic and social history in global perspective. It covers the period from ca. 1750 to the First World War, an age that saw the emergence of industrialization, the rise of modern European global empires, and what has been considered as the first wave of globalization. The first block of the course examines Glasgow's history and its connections with the wider world forged through slavery, empire, and globalization. Subsequent blocks of the course allow students to integrate study of key historical questions and themes with consideration of different world regions, which may include Europe, East Asia and South Asia, Africa, and North and South America.

Sport is central to life in the modern world. Why do people play sport, watch sport, talk about sport, dream about sport? And why do they choose the sports that they choose? This course examines the modern passion for sport and seeks to explain this passion. It assesses to what extent the straightforward pursuit of pleasure overwhelms everything else when people chose to engage with sport. But it also looks at how such choices are defined (or refined) by the influence of ideology and tradition, class and gender, commerce and geography, education, and employment. From the colosseum of the Roman Empire to the stadia of the 21st century, this course considers the creation of the modern sporting world and analyzes the place of sport within the context of social, cultural, political, and economic change.

 

This course explores the historical evolution of the aerospace industry and technologies, highlighting the development of various elements of aircraft and the impact on human life.

This course offers a study of Spanish history from the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth century including political processes, social relations, and cultural productions of modernity.

This course examines the history of Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries: the growth of Islam and Christianity, the impact of European colonialism, the development of nationalism, and the variety of different political and social outcomes after independence

This course covers the development of public administrations during the 18th and 19th centuries. It addresses the ways in which government impresses political will onto the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, and how, inversely, society shapes government. It is both a course in history and public law. The course draws attention to the centuries of social evolution and legal tinkering behind many habitual features of our contemporary “bureaucratic” administrations. It explores several administrative systems across the Atlantic and Europe, namely that of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. Each session begins with the commentary of a visual document relating to aspects of a period's daily life containing cues to the legal and institutional context. The rest of the session consists of a brief lecture and a primary sources discussion. Sources are provided in a reader and mostly consist of historical legal documents.

This course offers a study of Spanish history from the end of the 19th century to the present.

This course examines the dynamics of contemporary racism in France through a knowledge of long history. It traces the genealogy of racism as it is expressed, both in the processes at work and in the debates that run through our society. To achieve this, the seminar focuses in particular, but not exclusively, on the legacy of our colonial past in terms of the expression of racism. This focus is directly linked to the lively debates that have arisen since the late 1990s as French society questions its colonial past. The seminar also develops the ability to reflect on the issues raised in a complex and problematized way.